UNICEF APPOINTS ITS FIRST YOUTH ADVOCATE FOR SRI LANKA

UNICEF appointed Tharushi Weerasinghe as a Youth Advocate-a voluntary role for outstanding young people to champion child rights. Tharushi is a journalist and law student from Sri Lanka passionate about issues of child rights and climate change. She lobbied against child marriage at UNICEF's Third Parliamentarian's Meeting for Children whereby Parliamentarians from South Asia principally agreed to make 18 the minimum age of marriage across the region. She was instrumental in the formulation of national education policy as a youth representative in multiple parliamentary oversight committees. She is an Earth Journalism Network fellow, an on-ground reporter at COP27, and is keen to keep working on climate change journalism and child rights.

Tharushi is UNICEF Sri Lanka’s first youth advocate.