Jessica Rimington
Never too Young to Make a Difference
By Nicole Price Fasig
This profile was printed in Abroad View magazine fall 2006
Jessica Rimington’s resume of awards and achievements is impressive, to say the least. She has been intimately involved in a number of international efforts for conservation, sustainability and global understanding; founded several successful organizations; attended United Nations summits; and traveled the globe. And she just finished her freshman year.
Rimington, a student at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, has been involved in global environmentalism since she joined Roots & Shoots (www.rootsandshoots.org), the youth branch of the Jane Goodall Institute, when she was 12 years old. Rimington went on to become a founding member of the organization’s Youth Leadership Council.
Goodall, the institute’s founder, believes strongly in the power of young people to make a difference in the world, and her experience with Jessica only strengthened this conviction. “My hope lies in the tremendous energy, enthusiasm and commitment of a growing number of young people around the world,” Goodall says. “As they find out about the environmental and social problems that are now part of their heritage, they want to fight to right the wrongs.”
Rimington founded the Cape Youth Council on Sustainability in her home state of Massachusetts in 2003, hoping to encourage local students to work toward a sustainable future for Cape Cod. Her aspirations went global in 2004 when she started the One World Youth Project (www.oneworldyouthproject.org), an organization linking schools around the world to help foster international understanding and cooperation.
At each moment we have the opportunity to begin the world again,” Rimington says. “Young people can make a tangible difference. That’s not a cliché; it’s a fact.”