By Richard Desir

The Brookline community celebrated the Brookline Youth Awards last June and recognized Saya Ameli Hajebi as the 10th annual Brookline Youth of the Year.

The event has become a town institution that has been recognized for over ten years in Brookline at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. However, this was the first year that the program was done entirely online. You can hear from Hajebi herself, along with over 80 students in Brookline. Hajebi

grew up in the capital of Iran, Tehran, where she experienced firsthand the repercussions of neglecting environmental health have on a city. She moved to the United States over nine years ago and remembered the blue sky she was greeted with at Logan Airport. Even at that young age, she had a twang to keep her new home free from the polluted gray sky she had thought was normal in Tehran.

Hajebi received her first award as a junior at Brookline High during the 9th Youth Awards for her passion for environmental activism. The Environmental Action Club was the impetus for her pursuit of change in not only the state but also how the country addresses the climate change crisis moving forward. Hajebi traveled to Michigan in July 2019 to participate in a march in Detroit as a part of the Sunrise Movement. She worked with a team of youth to orchestrate a march for the Boston Climate Strike last September, which brought over 10,000 people to take the streets of Boston, all with one vision: climate reform. When asked about the Climate Strike, Hajebi had these words to say on the impact of unity, “I felt the electricity, the energy of 10,000 young people in front of me, vibrating the stage with their power,” she said.

Hajebi has taken her passion for change not only to the environmental battle but the educational one as well. She was a co-founder and director for the Academic Parity Movement, a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to advocate for students who experience academic discrimination, violence, and bullying with the help of legal professionals, psychologists, researchers, and legislators.

The work she has done so far has garnered attention from not only the Brookline community but also interviews with media outlets such as WBUR, The Guardian. Al Jazeera. Buzzfeed News, and BBC. She conducted a sit-down conversation with the former head of the EPA, Gina McCarthy, where Hajebi gave voice to the next generation of environmentalists who are actively making a change in the lives of future generations. She also had the opportunity to aid in passing legislation inside the Massachusetts State House. Even when the pandemic began, Hajebi and her team were able to organize an event on Earth Day that addressed environmental awareness.

Please join me in welcoming Saya Ameli Hajebi to a growing community of youth recognized for the impact they are having not just on Brookline, but nationwide.

Richard Desir was the 2019 Brookline Youth of the Year.