By Emily Gianni
On Saturday, September 25, I went to the Global Citizen Festival for the first time. I knew it was a concert, but I did not know what it was going to be like. Day of the festival, I got a text from one of my best friends asking me if I wanted to go. Of course I said yes, so my four friends and I changed, and got ready to go.
When we arrived, a man in a suit came to get us by the gates and brought us through the VIP section. I had no idea that there was a VIP section at these concerts. We were in a tent surrounded by food and a large screen television with the concert displayed on it. The VIP section is where the artists would run through after they performed. We did not stay in the back for long because we wanted to see the concert in person.
We went to the front of the festival, and we were so close to the performers: we were in the third row closest to the stage. We watched Lizzo, Shawn Mendez, Jenifer Lopez, Meek Mill, and Billie Eilish. Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and more famous individuals were there to talk about different pressing topics at hand: vaccines, climate change, education for all, etc. It was so amazing to see these artists so close and at the Global Citizen Festival, especially since it’s for a good cause.
Global Citizen is an important organization that brings attention to extreme poverty and aims to bring an end to the issue. Some of these issues may include Health, Education, Food and Hunger, Water and Sanitation, Environment, and Gender Equality. In between all of these artists, videos of people living in poverty came on to talk about how Global Citizen is helping them. Other famous individuals came on to talk about how humans can help the earth and people living in poverty.
Two moments of the festival that stood out to me were Shawn Mendez bringing up a poet during his show time and Billie Eilish’s speech about caring for the earth. First Shawn Mendez brought up Fanta Ballo. She is a slam poet and said one of her poems about resilience. It was a really powerful poem and I thought it was the perfect time and place for Ballo to share her message. Billie Eilish also preached about taking climate action. She said if we want to see a change in the world, we need to be the change. She had her brother help her with the duet for “Power” before urging Congress to pass the Build Back Better Act. This means that there would be the strongest climate laws in US history. This would also tell humans that we need to reduce our emissions. Eilish went on to say that we need “President Biden to deliver on the US’ promise to provide $100 billion in funding each year to developing countries.” Overall, this whole experience was really heartwarming. I would have never thought that so many people would show up to this event. I would absolutely love to go to another Global Citizen festival. I would love to be more involved in the change because poverty, climate change, education for women in third world countries, ending hunger, etc. are such huge issues that I hopefully will never experience at first hand. I want to be better for the world and Global Citizen is a huge first step in the right direction. If you would like to learn more about how to help, go to https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/.