La Neice Collins: Striving to Prohibit Nuclear Testing
Ladderworks is a publishing platform of diverse picture books and online curriculum with the mission to empower over a million kids to become social entrepreneurs. Our current series features interviews by our interplanetary journalist Spiffy with inspiring Social Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Builders, and Changemakers who are advancing the UN SDGs.
Welcome back! Spiffy here, your interplanetary journalist reporting from Planet Earth with an eye on entrepreneurs working to make this world more equitable. Today I’m super excited to speak with La Neice Collins, acting chief of the public information section at the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).
Spiffy: It’s wonderful to meet you, La Neice. I’m curious about the challenges CTBTO is addressing. What can you tell me?
La Neice: Thanks for having me, Spiffy. My organization works to ban nuclear testing to keep the world safe from the effects of nuclear tests and the weapons these tests help create.
Spiffy: What motivates you to do it?
La Neice: I want to help raise awareness that nuclear testing and nuclear weapons are still a danger to humanity and that we have the tools we need to make sure future generations don't have to live with the threat of these weapons.
Spiffy: What would you say is the impact of your work?
La Neice: By helping raise attention about the continued danger of nuclear testing, we can encourage people and governments to take positive action to ban them permanently.
Spiffy: Is there anything else you would love to tell our audience?
La Neice: Young people are important advocates for ending nuclear testing because it is their generations that will deal with the environmental and health impacts of these tests. So it's important that they feel empowered and engaged.
Spiffy: Thanks for speaking with me today, La Neice—it’s been an honor!
La Neice Collins is the acting chief of the public information section at the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). She has worked as a global communications manager for the United Nations for more than a decade, focusing on issues related to youth engagement and activism, women, peace and security, sustainable development, human rights, social equity and inclusion, peacebuilding and conflict resolution, and nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. (First published on the Ladderworks website on November 15, 2023.)
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect those of Ladderworks LLC.
© 2023 Ladderworks LLC. Edited by Sujit Kunte. Spiffy’s illustration by Shreyas Navare. For the Ladderworks digital curriculum to help K-3 kids advance the UN SDGs, visit Spiffy's Launchpad: Creative Entrepreneurship Workshops for K-3 Kids and their caregivers here.