Reflection

I discovered my passion for creating animated films when I was 8 years old. It began with "music videos" featuring my stuffed animals, which turned into clips of my favourite video game characters. As I grew older, I began to draw my own original characters digitally. When I discovered the Ocean Awareness Contest, I immediately knew that I wanted to participate by creating an animatic-style video revolving around Maya Penn, a talented individual who inspires me through her activism, art, and animation. Choosing Maya Penn as my Climate Hero was a perfect fit due to her journey as a young, female entrepreneur and her passion for the environment, art, and animation - an alignment that mirrors my own interests precisely. In the present day, social media has brought incredibly important issues such as climate change to the forefront. Throughout the past few years, I've attended numerous climate strikes in my hometown, advocating for the preservation of our planet and rallying against climate change. Even as I prepare to move to a brand-new city for my post-secondary education, I plan to continue the tradition and attend the Global Climate Strike next March. While creating this project I learned a lot about Maya's sustainable clothing business, which made me realize that the majority of my wardrobe consists of fast fashion brands - culprits in the cycle of excessive consumption. During my research, I fell down a rabbit hole and watched several YouTube docu-series exposing the inhumane working conditions in fast fashion factories and the devastating environmental impact caused by this excessive waste. It saddens me to acknowledge that this is our current reality, but raising awareness about these issues, as many climate heroes like Maya are doing, is the most crucial step we can take. Creating this project has not only ignited a stronger awareness to consciously choose sustainable and second-hand rather than cheap and poorly made clothes, but has also reaffirmed my commitment to pursuing animation within my career path. Inspired by Maya's remarkable achievements, I hope to achieve similar success through positive contributions towards change.