Raina Maiga

Indianapolis, Indiana

Empowering youth to push for policy change

As an asylum seeker from Burkina Faso, Raina Maiga, 16, has firsthand experience of how people often feel they have no power to influence policy decisions. Which is why she works to ensure that young people’s voices are included in the legislative process.

Maiga is the executive director and director of legislative affairs for Confront the Climate Crisis, a youth-led organization focused on environmental issues in Indiana. Under her leadership, the organization cowrote and lobbied for two state bills in 2022 and 2023 aimed at creating a statewide climate solutions task force that would help develop comprehensive climate action plan for Indiana. The organization also held annual events at the Statehouse in Indianapolis to educate young people, especially from minority communities, and facilitate discussions with legislators. Additionally, Maiga led fundraising efforts to secure $20,000 in yearly grants to support high school students from across the state to travel to these events, helping remove the financial barriers that often hinder their participation.

While the bills didn’t get approved, Confront the Climate Crisis has been supporting students to connect with their city councils to enact local climate resolutions to add to the 10 such youth-written city resolutions in Indiana, that the group had helped it’s partner organization, Earth Charter Indiana, advocate for.