A Belfast climate activist who protested alone for 17 weeks has been buoyed by a wave of international support after her tweet was shared by fellow teen campaigner Greta Thunberg.
Anna Kernahan, 17, has been striking at the Spirit of Belfast every Friday since September to protest inaction on climate change.
Sometimes she'll protest alongside monthly student strikers - but mostly she's by herself.
After her seventeenth lone strike last Friday, the high schooler tweeted "Last strike of the decade. Still alone" and a photo of herself protesting.
Anna's message has been shared 1,500 times and has 12K "likes".
Anna said: "I woke up and I had already gained 900 followers, 500 comments - half of them telling me 'climate change is rubbish' or 'you’re just doing it for attention' [but] I am literally trying to raise awareness!"
She added: "[it's] phenomenal because people are finally taking notice and will hopefully join me."
Anna said it took "surprisingly little" to set up the Belfast chapter of Fridays for Future - a global student walk out started by Greta in 2018.
She is the only member in Northern Ireland.
In the months since, Anna has graduated to a wooden sign after the Belfast weather wore away her cardboard posters.
Like her, and a lot of her fellow student activists, she's been told to put down the placard and go back to school.
But she said her three-hour protests are productive.
She added: "Just because I’m school striking doesn’t mean I don’t care about my grades - if you were school striking just to get out of school you’d stop pretty quickly because it’s like having a full time job, it takes over your whole life."
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