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
