Climate Yes!
The Vision for the Climate Yes! (youth ecumenical summit on the Climate) was born at COP26 when young faith climate activists saw the need to network and strengthen each other.
The idea was created to hold an international event with hubs in different places and others coming on board online
The African hubs were held at Joburg, Lilongwe (Malawi) and Nairobi, with about 100 young faith activists from 14 different countries attending
They travelled for far, some as long as two days by bus in order to be part of the event.
The Johannesburg hub, with reps from South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mozambique started the event with a Season of Creation Service.
The theme was the burning bush which challenges us in three ways:
Firstly – where you are standing is holy – we need to fall in love with Creation, you will not protect what you do not love , remember that God speaks through creation, give yourselves time in nature and listen the voice of God
Secondly God hears the cry of the oppressed. We will be sharing stories of the impact of Climate change, for those of us who are more protected, living in cities do we hear the cry of those who are losing their homes, their crops, their schools and livelihoods?
Thirdly God says I am sending you. You may feel that you are too young, or too shy or don’t have the academic knowledge to talk of climate change But this is God’s mission, not ours, God sends us!
This was followed by a bible study from Bishop Zac on the theme of ‘Creation flourishing”
The Climate Yes! was launched and blessed by Bishop Vicentia Kgabe of Lesotho
Then we heard about reforestation from Malawi and Zimbabwe
over to impacts of climate change on Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi
and ended the day with a fun Cultural Evening!
Day two continued with another Bible study by Bishop Zac on the theme of “Creation Groaning”. We then looked at the impact of Fossil fuels in Africa: ReconAfrica Namibia, EACOP Uganda and Total in Mozambique.
We had a challenging message from Prof Beckford on Environmental racism and a workshop from Christian Aid on Advocacy.
Then we shared inspiring Stories of Christian Climate action from the different countries and denominations.
These were followed by discussion questions to be included in the Statement and Action plans
Thanks to Liko Qokela for the great photos!
With great appreciation for the support of
