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C is for…
Courageous,
Children's rights to food security,
Climate change,
Campaigner,
Co-chair,
and without any uncertainty…
C is for Christina Adane
Interview & Words Phadria Prendergast
CHRISTINA ADANE IS THE YOUNGEST IN CHARGE and she isn’t standing down. The wonderkid initially gained national attention in March 2020, when at just 16-years-old, she challenged the government’s ruling to take away free school meals from 1.3 million children in the UK, and won.
It had almost been a year since I had first discovered Adane, after hearing how passionately she had spoken at the BoF VOICES 2020. Over at the WOTC HQ (which at the time had temporarily become my old Canary Wharf apartment overlooking the Thames), we were getting ready to wrap up our final issue and campaign of the year: The Sharing Economy. Cover girls were set and we were ready to go to press, but as I listened to a then 17-year-old Christina speak to Imran Amed, BoF’s EIC, I knew I had just found another cover girl. I also knew that publishing would think I had gone mad. How could we add a cover girl this late? I could already imagine everyone’s reactions, and in that instance, I didn’t care.
I wasted no time in getting my assistant to locate her contact details. I was excited for us to tell this story. I knew it would inspire many other Christina Adane’s. I couldn’t wait.
She responded only a few hours later saying that she’d be honoured to be part of the issue, however by the time we managed to book her in for an interview, it was already the 8th, but I was still adamant that it had to be 22 cover girls. Publishing would just have to wait.
When we spoke on 9th December - a telephone call, not Zoom (I wanted to shake things up a little), I was even more inspired by the young activist. Adane was passionate about food inequality, climate injustice and racial injustice. She recalled how at 11, she sprung into action after learning about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which took the lives of many young people. She went to school that day and convinced her teacher to help her set up an Ebola crisis fund, wanting to raise money in support of the lives that had been affected, and by the end of the week, she had raised over £700, an astounding amount for a young girl who needn’t have cared for what was happening thousands and thousands of miles away from her. “That felt like millions to me back then. I was ecstatic,” she told the audience at her TEDx Talk earlier this year, as she retold the story.
She also further detailed her fight with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the UK government in her pursuit to eliminate food poverty. Before any national television network or tabloid was even willing to give her a platform where she could speak, she had created her own as Co-chair of the Youth Board at Bite Back 2030; a youth-led movement and charity co-founded by renowned British chef Jamie Oliver MBE, which fights for a fairer food system and to half child obesity by 2030. Prior, Adane also openly shared passions for climate awareness.
After Prime Minister Boris Johnson ruled out extending meal vouchers after the Easter holidays in 2020, following the national lockdown, Christina took to the Bite Back platform urging people to sign her desperate petition. Her post read: “My name is Christina, I’m 16 and live in London. Like 1.3 million other children, I get free school meals. They are the difference between whether we eat or not. Now those like me, who desperately rely on them, are being told they will be taken away during school holidays. That’s why I’m urgently calling on the Government not to abandon children by taking away lunches during half-term and to commit to feeding them over the holidays. Please help by signing.”
By November 2020, the petition had amassed over 430,000 signatures and Adane had not only gotten the government to agree to providing school meals during the May half-term, the summer holidays and October half-term of that year, but to also provide support throughout the remainder of 2020 and the entirety of 2021. Unstoppable was the only word you could use to describe her.
Adane and I officially met at the WOTC Fashion Week 2021. I had extended an invitation to our private breakfast on day 1 during London Fashion Week. She was poised, eloquent and wise beyond her years. It was hard to believe she was just 17-years-old. More than anything, I admired that she stood for something. It was easy not to.
Throughout 2020, she also took to a number of public stages including London’s first-ever Food Insecurity Summit and We Day 2020 and ended the year recognised as one of BBC’s most influential women and as a guest on Prince Harry’s and Meghan Markle’s Archewell podcast alongside other guests who include Stacey Abrams and Brené Brown.
Now, 18-years-old, LSE bound, (after her gap year) and having just celebrated Bite Back 2030’s 2-year anniversary where she spoke alongside Jamie Oliver and welcomed guests like the COO of Tesco, Adane has added further accolades to her name having been recognised as the ‘Rising Star’ at the Third Sector Awards and most recently by Tessy Ojo MBE who bestowed Adane with the reputable Diana Award. Regarding her gap year, she comments “wherever the world takes me. I’m not with the whole thing of everyone pressuring you to figure out your life at 18. You should be able to go with it and discover what you want to learn.” Adane will spend the year taking on more of a leadership role at Bite Back 2030, and her works can already be seen as she urged for her 431,000 change.org supporters to email their local MPs to #EndChildFoodPoverty as the budget approached which was to be revealed on October 27th, in hopes that their voices would put pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson in allocating funding to allow access to healthy, nutritious food for millions of children across the country. This came after Adane discovered that aside from the whopping 1.3 million children who needed free school meals, a further 1 million children were not even eligible.