A hardline activist group has called on children to hold climate ‘strike nights’ so they can encourage their classmates to skip school for a ‘massive’ protest.
The school protests are claimed to be spontaneously organised by the children themselves, inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, and organisers are preparing for a big strike on September 20.
But Daily Mail Australia can report the students are being agitated and supported by millionaire activist groups partly funded by unknown overseas donors, along with The Greens.
School strike protesters in Brisbane earlier this year
The Sunrise Project says it is not organising the protests but it is providing logistical support including with authorising promotions such as this one
The Sunrise Project, a green funding group that acts as a middle man giving money from donors to smaller activist groups, is supporting climate strike nights to build momentum among school students ahead of a planned climate strike on September 20, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Hardcore green groups such as the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) which runs The School Strike For Climate Action Facebook page, have provided support and logistics and are hosting Facebook pages to organise the school strike nights events.
The events are held online and hosted in halls, homes and venues, sometimes weekly, in order to build excitement among children for September 20.
The Sunrise Project would not say whether they were providing any funding or logistics support to the school climate strike, but said they were not ‘organising’.
‘The Sunrise Project is not organising Climate Strike nights, but perhaps we should be more proactive?,’ a spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia on Monday.
The Sunrise Project said it is not organising the climate strike protests, but promotional material for the build-up strike nights were signed off by ‘S. La Rocca, The Sunrise Project’. Sam La Rocca was formerly chief of staff for Greens MP Adam Bandt but left in 2014
Tamworth School Strike for Climate Action which hosts weekly strike nights at an immigration law firm, posted encouragement from Greens MP Shane Rattenbury. The Greens voted to support the climate strikes at their party conference in July
The Sunrise projects 2018 annual report prominently features photographs of the school strikes, one of which has a caption saying its mission is to ‘scale social movements’ to drive the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
The charity, based in the Sydney suburb of Surry Hills, has signed off on authorisation for a webinar promotion which said it would give instructions on how to run an ‘epic’ Climate Strike Night event.
‘Hear how you can run an epic Climate Strike Night in your community and help to supersize the September 20 #ClimateStrike,’ it said.
The Sunrise Project acts as a middle man giving money from donors to smaller activist groups, and runs support campaigns. Its 2018 annual report featured promotional photographs of the truancy school strikes, including one saying its mission is to scale social movements
The promotion was signed off by: ‘S. La Rocca, The Sunrise Project’, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Another promotion was billed as a community get-together to get people involved to make the climate strike ‘massive’.
Mr La Rocca was chief of staff to Greens senator Adam Bandt before leaving in 2014, and is now a deputy director of The Sunrise Project.
The Greens publicly support the school children protests, and passed a motion at their national conference in July to call on people to join the September 20 strike.
The Sunrise Project reported to the ACNC Charity Register that 12.4 percent of its $8.3 million expenses was from foreign grants and donations.
Sunrise Project director Aviva Imhof is also a deputy director at the European Climate Foundation, based in The Hague. It is funded by globalist billionaire foundations such as the ClimateWorks Foundation which funds Greenpeace. Sunrise Project’s executive director and co-chair are also former Greenpeace campaigners
It is unknown how much Sunrise Project gets from overseas or who their largest donors are
It is unknown who the donors are, or how much of its $9.8 million reported revenue came from overseas, but director Aviva Imhof is also a deputy director of the International Energy Initiative at the European Climate Foundation (ECF), based in The Hague, Netherlands.
The ECF gets its funding from a collection of globalist billionaire funds including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Ikea Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation and the ClimateWorks Foundation, which itself funds Greenpeace.
Sunrise Project executive director John Hepburn, a former Greenpeace campaigner, told Daily Mail Australia the Sunrise Project works in Europe, Asia and the US so its funding reflects the geographies it works in.
‘We respect the rights of our donors to privacy, particularly given the divisive nature of the climate change debate in Australia,’ he said on Monday.
Mr Hepburn would not confirm or deny whether Sunrise Project was providing logistical or funding support to groups organising the school student climate strikes, but said it ‘joins’ them in ‘encouraging the community to support their inspiring action.’