Climate leader Priyanka Lalla makes history at Vatican’s Raising Hope Conference

October 19, 2025

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Climate leader Priyanka Lalla makes history at Vatican’s Raising Hope Conference

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Castel Gandolfo, Italy—Nineteen-year-old Priyanka Lalla, UNICEF Youth Advocate for the Eastern Caribbean, became the youngest invited speaker at the prestigious Raising Hope Conference, held at Pope Leo XIV’s Summer Palace to mark the tenth anniversary of Laudato Si’.

Representing UNICEF, Project Dandelion, and “large ocean states”, Lalla championed intergenerational collaboration and “hope as a new form of leadership” before global faith, policy and climate leaders.

Lalla was also the youngest person specially invited to meet Pope Leo XIV. Her address drew from personal experience after Hurricanes Irma and Maria, her children’s climate book series Svara’s Adventures, and her work mobilising Caribbean youth across faiths to treat climate action as a moral imperative.

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