A 16-year old girl affected me more this year than many older heads of state or established role models ever have. I'm not sure if Greta Thunberg knew what she would end up accomplishing when she went on strike in August 2018, sitting alone outside the Swedish parliament with a sign calling for stronger action on climate change. I'm not sure she had a plan or an inkling of what that symbolic act would trigger. The photograph went viral for all the right reasons, eliciting protests in Sweden that slowly overflowed before taking over the world. By September this year, she had pulled off what some refer to as the biggest climate strike in our history.

Thunberg also reminded me of Emma González, a 19-year-old survivor of a shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, who co-founded a gun-control advocacy group called Never Again MSD. They initiated protests too, across the United States, arguing for changes in gun laws.