Yurshell Rodríguez Hooker

Yurshell Rodríguez is an Environmental Engineer from the National University of Colombia. She is a climate activist, research, and plaintiff in the first climate change and future generations lawsuit in Latin America. She is part of the native Afro-Caribbean Raizal ethnic group from the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina Islands, Colombia. She has been dedicated, from very young, to the protection and conservation of ecosystems, participating in activities to protect the environment. In 2018, with other 25 young plaintiffs and the NGO Dejusticia, they sued the Colombian government to stop deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and won the lawsuit. By the end of 2020, the Providence island was largely destroyed by Category 5 hurricane Iota, worsened by climate change. Yurshell is currently in Providence island, supporting her post-hurricane community by delivering donations with the FiProvidence Youth Network and working with the National University of Colombia in the Caribbean with the student community on the island.