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Thirteen members of the Climate Yes! (Youth Ecumenical Summit) are attending the African Climate Week in Nairobi. Four of our Regional leaders in Africa are already in Nairobi for the #AfricaClimateSummit23. Today, they represented us in the Pre Summit Faith Leaders Consultation meeting They attended the Pre – Summit Faith Leaders Consultation meeting convened by All Africa Conference of Churches in partnership with the Lutheran World Federation. They had a chance to present the Climate YES statement to 40 different stakeholders present – here is the statement https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cJmvdtujg5R4BpQKlNLKKAA8UDUxSG5z/viewthe meeting. Find out more about Climate Yes! here  – the Climate Youth Ecumenical Summit https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/161W2z_LfBdgMYwqq5eY_rlr5dwCq2gQX/edit#slide=id.p1 Images Climate Yes!

  SNIPPETS FROM THE SOUTH As we mark the start of the Season of Creation, here are a few activities that took place across the Anglican Church of Southern Africa! Please do share some pictures of how you are celebrating! The Ecumenical youth of Cape Town got together on Friday the  1st of Sep and stared with  food and fellowship. They then watched the Pope’s video – “The Letter” and broke into discussion groups for serious discussions On Sunday churches celebrated in many different ways – here are a few – St Stephens Church in New Brighton – Bishop Edie Daniels planted a tree to mark the start of Season of Creation and Arbor month. The tree will form part of the Anglican Communion forest St Andrews Alabama starting their season of creation with some special activities for the children. St Phillips Grahamstown  planted a palm tree today to earmark the opening of season of creation St Thomas Berea, Durban held an outdoor service to celebrate on the theme of  the Church and Creation. The service was held in the tea garden which has now been refreshed. An azalea bush was planted to celebrate the occasion. St Thomas in Rondebosch welcomed Bishop Martin Gainsborough, Bishop of Kingston, as our preacher this morning. (Before becoming Bishop he was the Diocesan Environmental Coordinator for the Diocese of Bristol) Church of the Ascension , Klein Drakenstein had a youth service – Rev Earl Richards challenging the young people to follow God’s call to care for creation    

Anglican Students Federation celebrates 60 years! The Anglican Student Federation of Southern Africa held it’s 60th Provincial conference in Eswatini from the 27 till 30 July 2023 at Mphopho conference centre. The Anglican Environmental Network of Southern Africa ( Green Anglicans ) was invited to be part of this great celebration of students from across the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. On Saturday morning the conference was themed around care for creation, we opened the day with a beautiful morning eco devoation led by Bino Makhalanyane – Green Anglicans youth coordinator, with the students from Lesotho and North West. The message was based on  Ezekiel 47:1-12 , we are all called to be part of the flowing river, formed by unique raindrops representing each of us.  During our time together Mr. Dlamini from Eswatini Ministry of Tourism and Environment ( Climate department ) gave us a great presentation on the impacts of climate change on our livelihoods all over the SADC region. He also took time to  explain what Climate Change was and the role we each need to play when it comes to climate mitigation and adaptation. During the discussion on climate change the students made two important requests – firstly that different methods of fighting climate change should be  taught and publicised. Sometimes we think that the only thing we can do to fight climate change is to plant trees and we need to know about other actions we can take as well.   The second request was that  our governments should always see each church as a stakeholder at all levels of engagement from community to global and not only as a place to mobilise and market programmes. Ms Busiwa Dlamini from the Global Climate YES (Youth Ecumenical Summit)  movement shared with the students the importance of establishing campus eco networks, which allows for young people in that specific campus to have common goals. Issues of the environment affect us all and we can respond in many different ways – for example those in sports can teach children to swim as the floods so they are safe as flooding becomes worse, those in business studies can consider green entrepreneurship, those doing social work can consider the impact of rising food prices due to drought on people’s mental health. Engineering students can consider the adaptation of buildings and infrastructure needed to respond to the changing climate  If different groups focus on these different areas, then you can have a better reach to your peers, and this might also open up opportunities to join networks and Bino Makhalanyane closed the morning theme by unpacking what the Green Anglicans Movement  is all about and how the church in Southern Africa continues respond to the Anglican Communion’s Fifth Mark of  missions by “safeguarding God’s creation”. There  is a need for young people to be at the front of this battle as we are the generation which is being hit hard by climate change. The Green Anglicans would like to take these opportunity to thank Ms Basetsana Makena and her outgoing exco for the hard work they have done over the past four years and  also welcome the newly elected exco led Mr Tsobotsi Koloti.  Bino Makhalanyane  _ Green Anglicans Youth Coordinator We would like to thank the Anglican Overseas Aid for their suppor   t. 

The ACSA Season of Creation Manual is based on the Ecumenical Theme of “Let Rivers of Justice and Peace flow” and the image is of Elizabeth Wathuti, climate activist from Kenya.  She challenged the Bishops at the Lambeth Conference to do more for climate justice      

The Diocese of False Bay responded to the call made at Lambeth to take part in the Anglican Communion Forest by planting trees and restoring eco-systems by weaving this into the spiritual life of the church. The Environmental Coordinator of the Diocese, Rev Deon McDillon sourced trees from the Department of Forestry and Fisheries, so that every parish and chapelry could receive a tree to plant.   The tree can be planted on the church ground or a suitable place that will reflect our commitment to this call. Bishop Margaret blessed the trees before they were handed out to the different parishes. After Bishop Margaret blessed the trees, we discussed how emotional we both became. I thought it was because this was the Bishops last Chrism service before she retires but then we realised it was the Holy Spirit that moved us as we were doing something positive for the environment.   Rev Deon McDillon

NAIROBI SUMMER SCHOOL ON CLIMATE JUSTICE The Nairobi Summer School on Climate Justice Cohort III saw well over 200 young people from Africa and neighbouring continents come together for two full weeks of intensive learning and capacity building programmes which pushed us all our ultimate limit showing us that nothing is impossible when we work as a team. The Conference was organised by the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance ( PACJA) in partnership with Kenyatta University and was held at the University from the 3rd to 15th of July. This was the third cohort of young people to be trained.  Our major focus for the two weeks was around issues of Climate Justice at a global level and how Africa fits in as one of the most affected continents by Climate Change. Africa also  has a high number of young people who need to adapt to the current crisis, while always advocating for justice and growing our economies.  During the two weeks one was able to clearly understand the call for a JUST Transition at all levels of Climate Adaptation and Mitigation which ensures that we leave no one behind or pushed to a disadvantaged state. Through this programme I can safely say I understand better and have increased my level of understanding on our call for climate finance, how and we why we are demanding climate justice. I was also privileged to be invited to the Green Anglicans Movement of Kenya dinner by the Provincial Coordinator Revd Dennis where we shared our learnings and how best we could collaborate as ecumenical bodies across Africa to fight and advocate for Climate Justice in our lifetime. There was a strong Green Anglicans contingent at the Conference: Rev Dennis Nthenge, Mis Ester , (Kenya), Eric Bagenzi (Rwanda),  Helvi Shindume (Namibia), Gobeng Mamuru ( South Sudan) myself from South Africa and  two climate justice activists from Kenya ( Jesse David and Halisi Monray ) who both use art as an advocacy tool. The most important things that I learned during the two weeks were that we need to always seek to get involved at all levels of engagement as activities and not just keep to our small local comfortable zones we need to be in the political as they are policy makers we also need to align with business as economy plays a big role in our lives. Monitoring and evaluation is important in the climate justice these helps us plan well, implement, measure progress and take learnings so that we are able to do better next time, without it we are just but moving and cannot measure growth. Most importantly we need to keep ourselves informed of the current news within our space and always identify which area of Climate justice you want to focus on,  so that one is able to excel without burning out. I would like to give a special thanks and appreciation to CLIMATE YES Movement which made it possible with me to attend the event, the All Africa Conference of Churches,  Green Anglicans across Africa, and the organizers of the NSSJ PACJA. You have surely contributed to ensuring a better and bright future for Africa and I’m proud to be amongst the team of climate justice soldiers. #GreenAnglicans #ClimateYes #PACJA By : Bino Makhalanyane