Click on the links in the side bar to read the parts of the transcript that interest you the most.
Click here to go back to person video page.
Below is the full transcript.
Setting the Scene
In the Global North, they think it’s about money. We have to send money to these movements, but actually, solidarity does not just mean money. Solidarity is about supporting in anywhere. For example, solidarity in form of standing together on campaigns.
JANE
Nicholas has done much work to raise awareness and build climate justice. He created End Fossil Occupy Uganda, a local climate movement demanding a phase-out of fossil fuels. He co-founded Plant for My Future, which mobilized youth across Africa. He has attended COP events. He has strong messages about how the Global South and Global North should be interacting. He has powerful insights into how we can each help make a difference. Let’s hear what he has to say. Well, it’s great seeing you again, Nicholas, and this time you’re in Germany, I understand.
Sustainable civil engineering
Yes.
JANE
What kind of studies are you doing in Germany? Are you specialized in something?
NICHOLAS
Yeah, I’m currently studying sustainable civil engineering.
JANE
Interesting. Civil engineering. In other words, people.
NICHOLAS
Yeah, it’s more about people. So sustainable civil engineering sits at the intersection of infrastructure, environmental science, social impact, and it gives me technical tools to understand and engage with kinds of large-scale developments that affect communities, and maybe also frontline people who are always affected by construction projects. So I chose sustainable civil engineering because it has the sustainability aspect.
JANE
Yeah. Well, you’ve been very involved in that sort of thing. I remember when you told me about End Fossil Occupy Uganda. That still exists, doesn’t it?
Indigenous free conservation and water management
Yeah. Yeah. It has existed for now almost five years and mostly our campaigns have been against East African crude oil pipeline. Also, there’s another initiative that we’ve been doing, advocating mainly for Indigenous free conservation and water management in drought affected communities and Plant For My Future. Yes. And for me, it’s also good to take the engineering foundation to be able to offer this technical dimension, and also learn about environmental consequences of construction projects. And on top of my land economics bachelor’s, it’s also a good point to upgrade and have more experience from learning about land to now learning about what’s put on land and how it can be implemented sustainably.
JANE
Yeah, that’s very interesting, and I think it’s essential for the future of all of us, for the future of the world. We tend to get involved in projects and ideas and building new things, and forget about sustainability. I mean, that sort of human nature.
NICHOLAS
It’s always about profit.
JANE
Yeah. So, do you have some new solutions that you’re developing now within End Fossil Occupy Uganda?
Kutas Green Foundation: End Fossil Occupy Uganda and Plant for My Future
Yeah. So, just as the movement initially we had started as a movement with a clear and urgent demand, which was phasing out fossil fuels and ensuring that there’s a just transition away from fossil fuels, and a just and equitable way, does that not leave many African communities behind? But over time, we have actually learned that demanding for change is just part of our work. So we are now trying to look for alternative ways of building community resilience to create conditions in which many people can imagine and live in a different kind of future. So we are trying to set solutions like the one I’ve talked about and another sub-initiative plan for my future, which is now operating under a registered foundation called the Kutas Green Foundation. I founded it together with another activist, and this foundation is currently running End Fossil Occupy and also running the Plant For My Future initiative.
And just to introduce the Plant For My Future initiative, it came from witnessing, of course, the devastating impacts of droughts in Eastern Uganda, where, of course, I come from and where I was born. And I personally have experienced the fact that mature indigenous trees still that were helping us to retain water and to give us shade have been cut down because, of course, use of firewood, like a lot of communities don’t have access to clean cooking. So they tend to cut trees and then these trees are used as a form of cooking energy. And for us, our plant was, of course, to plant indigenous. And we started this initiative in 2021, actually, before the End Fossil Occupy campaign, but it was still small, although now we have kept on adding different activities to it. And we began planting indigenous trees where we established and managed women nurseries, creating, of course, a community for food forests that provide idea around nutrition, medicine, like in form of hubs.
And at the moment, we have three nurseries producing 40,000 saplings annually and a network of 70 women volunteers and 32,000 trees in the ground or on ground with a 78% survival rate. So we try to assess also the survival rate of these trees, and we give the responsibility to the women to look after the trees and to also share their stories on the difficulties they faced. And most of them, the challenges that they raised were mainly too many droughts. And we actually won an award from [inaudible 00:06 :31] this year to continue scaling up this project. And we are going to continue with the project continuously until we try to make more impact. So it’s mainly focuses Eastern Uganda in Teso and Bukedea, this region. This region is mainly for Indigenous tribes, they are called Etesot and also the Bugwere people, but it’s a mixture of Bantu and a pastoralist tribe from the Nilotic dynasty.
Youth Power for Sustainable Future: environmental education
So, something that is connected to me personally as someone who comes from there. And we are also currently working on a climate education initiative called Youth Power for Sustainable Future to actually bring in the perspective of environmental education to also ensure that children, students, and communities learn about climate change and bring also power to the people. And then, besides that, ICO developed another project called the NDCA(2). This one is mainly to fix the gap between, of course, climate policy because when you realize in climate policy and the development of NDCs, which are national determined contributions, for those who might not know what national determined contributions are, these are like commitments that countries have to make after a period of five years to cut down their emission, to mitigate climate change, also an adaptation. So these submissions have to cut across all sectors of their planning phases in their budgets.
NDCs or nationally determined contributions
And usually most of the countries in the Global South have been developing these plans without consulting committees. So most of the communities don’t even know about these NDCs or nationally determined contributions. They don’t actually know what their governments have submitted at the moment, which had to be submitted last year. So the new NDCs by several countries had to be submitted last year. And most of the countries that submitted it actually showed that many countries will not fulfill the targets of limiting global temperatures below 1.5 degrees. So for us, what we are trying to use, we are trying to also use technology, which of course is a bit limited to many communities. So we want to also adopt other ways of collecting data, collecting their inputs, what they want to contribute in these documents. And then we will draft reports and submit these reports with our government, like the Focal Point, which is representing Uganda in the UNFCCC areas like at COPs, at bonds, at the SP conferences. So this is currently what has been happening, besides, of course, the campaign that you already knew about, which was only the End Fossil Occupy.
JANE
It’s interesting. You referred to women being more involved now than before. Why is that? Why do you think women are more involved?
NICHOLAS
I think that why women are more involved is because when you observe women, like for example, I would give the part of Pallisa that, most times in Pallisa, women are the ones who are working more. They work more like they work in the gardens. Most of the times they have to also look for money, and they have to take care of the kids. So it’s quite a lot of work also fetching water, all this work. And given the fact that many parts of Pallisa you find that it’s also a patriarchal society, and you find that they do a lot of work, but they are not empowered. So they have the capacity, and for us, we looked at this strength of the women having the capacity to work and then trying it out. And we have actually seen it that most of the women have fulfilled like when they promise, that we are going to protect this, we are going to do this, or we are going to do this, they actually do it, and they fulfill it with love.
Women more intentional: more into protecting their home, their futures, the future of their children
So it’s more that women are more intentional and women are more into protecting their home, into protecting their futures, into protecting the future of their children. Of course, men have also been involved and centrally also in some roles like helping in reaching out to many people, and also helping us identify potential people who might want to take part in the project. So yeah, I think it’s an intersection, but majority is women and also given the fact that women have been mostly, they’re the ones who are impacted by all these events. So we try to make sure that they’re the ones who are more impacted. Then they’re the ones who have to lead in the solution, and also try to be leaders this time. So, to also break this gap where the power imbalance is very strong. So we try to also break this power imbalance.
JANE
That’s interesting. When you say women are more impacted, it’s because they work at home, and they take care of the children, and they deal with, how would I say, individual family issues more than men do? Are the men sort of out on the road doing other things?
NICHOLAS
When I said more impacted, I was meaning in terms of, besides, of course, that being impacted in that way, yes. Also being in terms of these extreme weather events, like the droughts. Most of them talked about a lot of droughts affecting the trees and also affecting their farming, meaning that when they go and work like in a garden, or they go, they have to fetch water or something like that, they are the ones who bear so much sunshine. They’re the ones who have to bear the responsibility when they harvest. It’s not theirs because they’re the ones who have to harvest. So all this is a lot of impact on them, and at the same time, they don’t earn money for this. So what we are trying to do is also with the tree nurseries is that they’re able to be paid from working in these tree nurseries.
And also whenever they protect the biodiversity and protect also everything around, they get rewarded with in form of gifts, in form of sometimes remuneration. And then also, besides that, they get independence. So they get to lead what they would like to decide what they want to do. They get to also harvest from these nurseries. So it’s not just trees. There are also fruit trees. There are also plants that bear fruit at home, so that you can harvest and also feed your home. So they’re also able to get food that they can harvest and eat at home, and also sell in the market if they want.
Why working more with local leaders and elder women?
So, the challenges you’ve talked about a little bit, how does communication about these initiatives take place? How does the word spread from one family to another family, to one place to another place? How do you get more and more people involved?
NICHOLAS
Basically, working with local leaders and also working with, because we work with elder women, because they are elder women. So the women who have been there for a long time and know about the indigenous trees, they almost know many families around. So you talk to them and get to first understand what is needed. That’s the first thing. So, understanding what is required and then from that, they help us to get a list of people who can be potential women in the project. And then from that, we do an outreach, so we reach out to them, and then we do an introduction. So the last time that we did the introduction, I was in Uganda, it was in December, we gathered all of them. So we had to call all of them at one place. And then after that, we orient them in the local languages.
Working in local languages, keeping in touch: Ateso and Luganda
So we are not speaking English, we speak in Ateso and try to also speak in Luganda so that because most of the women also in this region, not in the town, because in the town, at least you can find, in Pallisa town, you find that a lot of people can speak English, but then when you go deep in the village, then people will only speak Ateso or Luganda because it’s part of their heritage, it’s part of them. So we use Ateso to speak what we are trying to do and make them understand and get an opinion from them. And then later we tell them… We would like to, for example, go in this region where there’s maybe a swamp, and this region is because there has been a lot of tree cutting in this region or because of… We try to explain because of environmental issues and also the human activity.
And then, from that, voluntarily, the women join. So we have to first collect water because getting water is not easy there. So we had to first have to collect water and then prepare, and then get… We hired also a van that we can put the water in, and also we can add every other thing that we use, like equipment, the hoe, and many other equipment. Then after that, we collect also the list of the women, the name, the number, the phone number, and everything so that we keep in touch. So that’s how I would try to give the overview. But before that, of course, we first have to reach out to locals there because I know so many local people there. It’s my hometown, so it’s not hard to figure out. Then they tell us when we can come and then that’s when we plan to go and then we do activities. Yes.
Lack of access to funding and resources makes life hard for activists
Very nice. You’re really building an active community that way, where all the different members of the community are active working together. That’s very interesting. One thing you said in an email exchange we had earlier was you said life is hard for activists. There’s a lot of work, a lot of pressure. What did you have in mind when you made that comment, how hard life is for activists?
NICHOLAS
Yeah. Basically, what I had in mind is that one is most times we don’t have access to funding. So that’s the first thing that we are under-resourced, especially grassroots movements in the Global South. We are chronically under resourced relative to, of course, the scale of our problems that we have. When it comes to resources that are available for Global North organizations that there’s just enormous opportunities that organizations or movements in the Global North have. First of all, there’s a lot of access to internet, electricity is easily accessible. There’s just so many things that can be used to maybe fundraise. And then also there’s a lot of people who can try to dedicate time to support or volunteer work. But for example, in Uganda, most of the grassroots movements, being under-resourced is one of the thing, so getting internet is difficult. So you have to buy a lot of internet.
And when you don’t have funding, if you don’t have to invest your own money, because in some of these projects, I have to invest my own money that I try to work for. So when you don’t invest your own money in the projects, then you don’t actually execute this. You don’t have money to buy data. You don’t have money to compensate volunteers because volunteers who come to support, they have to at least be compensated like a certain fee. And then at the same time, getting the trees also for this project, you have to buy the trees, you have to buy material to use, you have to translate some of the material for the people. You have to also, because some words are not easy to be translated, you have to get a translator and this translator also, you have to compensate them.
Scrutiny from our governments, or fighting against EACOP East African Crude Oil pipeline
So it’s not that very easy. So these are some of the things, and then other challenges include, of course, the risk that we get scrutiny from our governments, the kind of ways that limit us also to execute our tasks when we are free. So we don’t feel like very free to execute some tasks because some of the activities that we do as activists, they are taken as, I would say, like you’re working against the government or you’re working against the state. So, because you’re doing some tasks, maybe you’re fighting against the EACOP, this one, they see that you’re against the development, or let me say you’re supporting communities who are actually vulnerable, they think that maybe you want to become a politician and take over the government, or something like get public support.
Lack of structures to protect ourselves such as against human rights violations
And then after getting public support, then you’ll get into power. So things like this. So it’s very much that we have to do our work. We have to do it, but we don’t have to talk much about it. We just have to do it intentionally for the people and make sure that the people actually are a part of the solution, and then most of the times we also don’t have strong structures to protect ourselves, maybe in case of human rights, like human rights violations, maybe someone has been arrested or there’s been an intimidation or there’s a serious case. You find that the structures don’t favor you that much. And there’s also sometimes you’re fighting big powers, and when you’re fighting a big power, like someone who is a big political person, then it’s very difficult. And this one, I think it could be general because also in the USA, it’s just like the same when it’s someone who is in power commits a crime, then it takes some time. So yeah, something like that.
JANE
That’s human nature, isn’t it? For whatever the country is.
NICHOLAS
Yeah.
Older people reminder: “No, it cannot be done that fast because of this and this.”
Do you have young people getting involved with your work? You mentioned older people that you used as sort of a reference for the past, and they know a lot about the place. How about young people today? Are they interested in working with you?
NICHOLAS
Most of the team are actually young people from the people who do communication, organizing, moderation, also outreach. It’s mostly people below the age of 35 and most of, I would say ranging from 28, from 16 to 28 years. So mostly it’s young people, and we work with the older people to advise us. So, because the solution cannot just be fixed by us young people, we need a lot of knowledge from older generations and older people to actually understand how we can implement these projects without causing any issues. Because one thing is that we are young, and sometimes we want things to be done very fast, and then maybe someone older will tell you, “No, it cannot be done that fast because of this and this.” And then you have to look into it if it makes sense and something like that.
So yeah, this is how we try to work. For the meantime, working with everyone, we are a youth led group, but we try to work with everyone, every kind of stakeholder who will not of course risk us, but someone who can make sure that we are able to implement the project and we are able to do service delivery because most of our work is for service delivery and it depends on commitment of everyone. Yeah. Of course, some people have been stepping out because the same team that we work with at the moment is not the same team that was working at the same time, because this is not a regular paying job, so it’s not like a job.
Lack of funding makes it hard to keep a stable work force
You just do it once in a while. So most people have to take care of different responsibilities. So maybe they need to get a job, they have to pay rent, they have to handle certain tasks, and things like that. And it’s mostly that if you’re not getting enough payment for your work, then it means you quit. So people are demoralized. Some people, of course, are overwhelmed. It’s just too much work, and then you’re not paid something like that. Or you’re paid something small that can be handled to just compensate you, but it’s not like how you get paid on a contract, on a job with a big organization.
JANE
Yeah. I see how that can be a problem for a lot of people, and justifiably also because they need money to do certain things. How do you see this, I would say this movement or these changes evolving in the next, I would say in the future, I would say in say five, six, seven, maximum 10 years. Do you feel there’s going to be a big change for the good?
My work is campaigning and organizing, not solving all problems
I think it will depend on one, the geopolitics and also the different ways in which several countries react to geopolitics. At this point, I don’t try to get involved in everything is because I try to now focus on bringing impact in my community. So it doesn’t matter what I see, how the world will be, but what impact I will make, that’s I think what matters more to me. And for me in 10 years, I want, of course, the projects or the initiatives that I’m running to be recognized and respected as a force, to just give an example. Of course, I don’t at the moment think I can solve every problem in Africa or in Uganda, but I can fix the problem in my community, and that’s what I’m trying to do. And it’s not just about campaigning, it’s more than, of course, campaigning, it’s organizing.
It’s just also connecting my realistic change, like something I can really change in my community, and how the change I put in my community in Pallisa can also inspire other young people, can also inspire even politicians who might not be advocating for some things. So inspiring them to implement certain things in their communities. And for me, it’s more about this. And in 10 years, I hope that many things that I’m working on, including the campaigns against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline will be recognized at some point that at some point they will see that there was right in what the young people are doing with, of course, the trees that we are planting, all the networks that we are building, that this network will not just end on this. They will also build their own networks. They will also build their own solidarity spaces within this time, like with time, things are going to change, and people will co-organize along and be able to work along.
My role to be an accelerator: everything is possible
So, for my role is to be like an accelerator, to show that everything is possible. Many things are possible; we just need to start, we just need to do it. For me, this is what I think my role is, and then after in 10 years, I think it will be autonomous like everyone will be trying to do what they can. And geopolitically, I would not say that I know much about what will happen geopolitically, but generally speaking, is that whatever is happening geopolitically is also separate. So it’s normal that everything will rely, for example, on the US. So, at the moment, you can see that many countries not aligning with everything like that. For example, the US will do. For example, the US stepped out of the UN climate agreements, but more than 190 countries stayed. So this is something that also indicates that it is not just one country that will determine what will happen in 10 years.
It’s going to be a collective effort, and another thing is that there’s going to be a lot of changes that might happen, including also empowerment. So many countries are going to get empowered. There’s a lot of kind of empowerment that is building up from movements, from people, from communities, and understanding that we’ll be bringing this change. So it won’t just be dependent on one country that’s a superpower, but it will be dependent on individual countries coming together and working together on several things.
JANE
That’s a very, how would I say, inspirational view that you have. I like it a lot, and I really appreciate the fact that you see yourself as an accelerator to bring change about through other people. And you’re so aware of the fact that it has to be a collective effort to achieve success. I think that’s so wise. Do you have any last words, any last thoughts that you would like to share?
Everyone needs to know about Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals
Maybe I just wanted to share that even currently with all the geopolitical issues, there are still these injustice that happen and just to give an overview to many people all over the world to just try and act with care and look at the bigger picture of protecting people and communities and bringing together community and unity amongst the world instead of division so that we can solve several crises, including hunger, poverty, inequality, and the climate crisis itself, all these things that were indicated in the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals. If we want to fix them, then everyone has to know about them. Everyone has to be part of them for us to achieve, and you don’t have to have every source to do it, you just have to do it with what you have.
JANE
Absolutely. Nicholas, what do you think that people and organizations in the Global North can do to bring about change and increase awareness of what’s happening in the Global South?
What can the Global North and the Global South learn from each other? Standing together on campaigns
I think just to go straight to the point, because I’ve been asked this question a lot, what movements in the Global North can do? And usually, most movements in the Global North, they think it’s about money. We have to send money to these movements to implement several activities, but actually, solidarity does not just mean money. Solidarity is about supporting in any way. There are so many things, for example, solidarity in form of standing together on campaigns. And one of the campaigns has been an example that I can give is the StopEACOP campaign, how it was co-coordinated with several groups within Africa, within the Global North, and how the campaign was coordinated to also file a legal case against Total in France. So it was not just about money, but it was about this kind of community that was built. Other ways that, like many movements in the Global North can support is also sharing several skills.
There are a lot of skills that we can learn from the Global South and also that the Global North movements can learn from the Global South movement because I’ve worked with movements in the Global North before and when you look at how Global North movements work, they work more on a specific cause, like targeting to fix a certain issue, a certain problem. And then after the problem, it sort of stops there. But when it comes to movements in the Global South, you build these communities that you’re not just fighting or campaigning on a specific campaign, but you’re also connecting, you’re also understanding another one’s culture. You’re also understanding what one dislikes, what one does not like, what one loves. Also, this is more the connection that comes in the Global South movements and this kind of connection of knowing yourself and knowing others and knowing each other and keeping this kind of strong bond that is not just on a specific campaign, but even after the campaign, you stay in touch even after the campaign. You still work on several other campaigns.
Solidarity built on a crisis, sharing the crisis across North and South
So this kind of solidarity built on a crisis, and having to share this crisis together, and this crisis not going away because I know that there are different crises, because you find that our crisis could be about a project that is taking away our land, that is taking away our cultures. It’s taking away a lot of things from us, including the right to also make an income from farming. And then, for example, in the Global North, it could be a campaign maybe to protect homeless people or something like that. So most likely you’ll find that for our campaign, it’s also linked to the land, that connection to the land. And most of this connection to land is something that I also see that in the Global North, it’s not that strong. When you look at how land is looked at in the Global North, it’s looked at as in monetary terms, it’s looked at as something that you can lease, something that you could maybe sell.
And then you find that in the Global South, when you look at land, it’s culture, it’s about you, it’s about your story, it connects within you. Everything about you starts from the land. Even when you die, you’re buried in your village. You have to be buried in your same village. So when this is taken away from you, it is just like taking away your identity. And for us, these are the differences that also I think when we learn together, and we try to intersect all these connections, we will be like, we can make a way of solidarity. And when one movement does not understand the other, let me say in the Global North, the movements would like to only help in terms of monetary value, then it also creates a dependency. It’s called a beggar tendency. So you find that Global South organizations will always keep begging, like begging that we need money for this, we need money for this, but what can take away the begging its empowerment.
Help the South to get their own grants, not “beg” from the North
So, telling them and helping them to even apply for grants that they’re eligible for, so that they are able to learn how to apply for grants. They’re able to be able to have funds, to be able to, for example, execute a project or run a campaign. But when it’s more like a beggar tendency, then it is still you’re encouraging the system, which is actually this capitalistic system, which makes sure that we act like we are saving, like we are saving others. It creates this savior tendency, savior tendency, and beggar tendency. And that’s what I think we have failed to learn, especially also movements in the Global North and also movements in the Global South. So it’s a two way, but it’s accelerated mostly by groups and movements in the Global North.
JANE
Yes. Very, very interesting. It makes a lot of sense. Well, thank you very much Nicholas, for sharing these thoughts. I think it’s everything that we’ve talked about, everything that you’ve talked about is important, and the way you express it is inspiring.
NICHOLAS
You’re welcome.
SUBSCRIBE TO IMAGINIZE WORLD ON YOUTUBE
We talk with forward thinkers, scifi visionaries and pioneering organizations about people and society, AI and humans, the earth and survival. Read more Imaginize.World
Subscribe on your favorite Podcast app
