Malden High School student honored by Clean Water Action & Clean Water Fund

Special to The Advocate

Kidus Tsige, a sophomore at Malden High School, was honored with Clean Water Action & Clean Water Fund’s Youth Leadership Award for his work advocating for climate justice. A graduate of Clean Water Action & Clean Water Fund’s Youth Action Collaborative, Kidus has spent the past year expanding youth coalitions, rallying young leaders and lobbying legislators for climate action. On June 11, his activism was honored during Clean Water Action & Clean Water Fund’s annual event, Build the Future, at the Multicultural Arts Center in Cambridge.

“Kidus exemplifies the values of the Youth Action Collaborative. He is applying the organizing skills he learned at YAC and proudly representing his hometown while advocating for climate and environmental justice from his town hall to the State House,” said Clean Water Action & Clean Water Fund’s Youth Engagement Program Manager, Omesa Mokaya.

Kidus was a featured speaker at the Massachusetts Youth Climate Lobby Day and supported fellow Malden High School students in meetings with legislators. In addition to his work in state coalitions, Kidus continues to mentor the next cohort of Youth Action Collaborative students. In his own words, “I contribute to setting youth-led climate agendas throughout Massachusetts. This involves organizing, strategy, and ensuring that youth actually have a voice, not just representation.”

Since the founding of Clean Water Action during the campaign to pass the landmark Clean Water Act in 1972, the organization has worked to win strong health and environmental protections by bringing issue expertise, solution-oriented thinking and people power to the table.