Climate justice activists at Mount Allison University and their supporters will be getting their hands dirty on Friday as part of student-led climate strike actions happening around the world.

Their handprints will cover a banner painted with images from the fossil fuel industry – an oil well and two smokestacks belching black smoke – and bearing the words “People Not Profit.”

“That’s what we’re trying to do,” said student activist Kate DesRoches. “Put the people over the profit, literally.”

DesRoches is a member of Divest MTA, a student activist group that campaigns for Mount A to move its investment funds out of fossil fuels.

The artwork is part of student-led actions happening internationally as part of the Fridays for Future movement.

Divest MTA is part of a movement calling for institutional investors around the world to move trillions of dollars out of fossil fuels.

Universities have multimillion dollar funds called endowments which they use to generate cash.

By the end of 2020, Mount Allison’s endowment was worth more than $170 million, according to information publicly available on the university’s website.

Its holdings include names like Exxon Mobil, the Texas-based multinational oil and gas giant.

Overall, the university’s endowment fund had at least $7.4 million in fossil fuel companies by the end of 2019, according to calculations by Divest MTA.

DesRoches said there’s a tension between what students learn in the classroom about climate change, and how the university uses its money. You can listen to her interview with CHMA here:

CHMA also reached out to Mount Allison for comment on Tuesday, but the university couldn’t immediately provide a response.

Its website states the university doesn’t invest directly into individual companies, but rather uses investment managers to invest in “pooled funds.”

The student-led action in Sackville begins at 10:30 a.m. at the Crabtree breezeway, followed by a march to Centennial Hall at 1 p.m.