Educating Tomorrow’s Climate Activists
Green Schools Project
In 2019, I started the Vash Green Schools Project. This is a project that involves installing solar panels and clean cooking stoves in schools in Uganda. And what we were doing, especially in the rural schools of the country, we were giving a school a solar panel so that the solar panel can be able to light up two classrooms and provide security to the schools and also the main office of the school. And this was a way to also help schools understand that there is a more sustainable way of accessing electricity.
And then for the clean cooking stoves, many of the schools in Uganda use firewood for the preparation of food. More than 90% use firewood. So what the clean cooking stoves do, they help to reduce on the amount of firewood, they reduce on the consumption of firewood that schools use in preparation of food. They don’t eliminate the complete use of firewood, because we don’t have the means yet to make those kinds of stoves or even to purchase them. So what we are doing is constructing these clean cooking stoves so that they can reduce on the firewood. In the process, reduce on the strain of cutting down trees to provide this firewood.
And this project started with one school. We’ve now been able to reach 75 schools. We hope to reach many more schools. It has impacted more than 20,000 children now. We hope to reach more schools. We hope to see even the project improve to the place of not just having stoves that reduce on firewood consumption, but actually stoves that eliminate the consumption of firewood.
Climate problems are not local
We would say a lot of what happens in the Arctic, for example, doesn’t end in the Arctic. What happens in the Amazon rainforest or the Congo rainforest doesn’t end there. Because these are all really vital ecosystems that play a huge part in the survival and wellbeing of human beings and also other living organisms like the animals.
So for me, when it comes to climate disasters, what really exacerbates these disasters? When you look at the science, it has been the burning of fossil fuels. When fossil fuels are burned in another country, the impact may be felt elsewhere. A new coal power plant may be in Europe or in a country within Europe, may have a really terrible impact in the end for a country in the Global South. Because we live in a really interconnected ecosystem, and when fossil fuel or when greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere, they’re not only going to be concentrated in the atmosphere that surrounds or that is over a specific country. This atmosphere, it is for all of us as humanity.
So that’s why I think that whatever action that may happen in another country may bring really terrible impacts on another country in the process. And that’s why I think we’ve seen that when you look at countries that have historically benefited from the burning of fossil fuels, many of them are not on the front lines of the impact of the climate crisis. It is countries in the Global South, countries in the African continent that are suffering the most with the climate impacts. So you really see the injustice of the climate crisis. You really see the horrible reality of the climate crisis.
Give a voice to African activists
The idea is to give African climate activists a platform for their voices to be heard by the world. So that’s African countries in general whose voices are not yet sufficiently being heard by the world, which is a little bit what we were already talking about. And Rise Up, if I understand correctly, is an umbrella group that brings together different groups. Is it easy to bring together a lot of different groups working on the problem, even if they’re working in different ways?
Well, sometimes it’s not easy because every group has their own kind of beliefs. And also there are differences. There’ll always be differences. Even when you are working within one group, there’ll be differences among people. So if you’re working with different groups, there are obviously differences as well. So it’s really not easy. But then we’ve been able to focus most of the work of what Rise Up has been doing to amplify and share opportunities to the people that we are able to support through Rise Up, regardless of where they come from or what they believe in or what group they are a part of. So we’ve kind of focused more on the vision of why it was started, and that is to help people amplify their stories, the stories of their communities when it comes to the climate crisis.
Missing piece: Sense of Urgency
So I think that is where the missing piece is, and that is where we say climate education is really needed, not just topics that are a topic on climate change, because we had those topics, but they didn’t show us that this was a crisis. They didn’t empower us to do something. They didn’t empower us to raise awareness.
And I think that is what is really missing when it comes to students. If only we have more activists in these spaces speaking to students and motivating them to do something. And I’ve had the opportunity to speak to students of different ages, even students who are from ages of three to six, and you realize that their thinking is different. The way you speak to a child who is five is not the same way you speak to a child who is nine, because a child who is five, they won’t understand the climate crisis, but they’ll understand their favorite animal. And many of them, they will want to do… They’ll grow up with the love of ensuring that their favorite animal is protected.
And that is what eventually grows into what now you teach a 9-year-old who knows that a water bottle is important because that is what they understand, that if I carry my water bottle, then I’m not going to have to buy water in a plastic bottle. That is what they understand.
With the different ages. The way you speak and educate is important. Yes, it’s very important to start from a young age because then you’re setting the foundation of what these young people are going to be as they continue to grow up. That foundation may be from starting to talk about them, the importance of protecting your favorite animal. And for them it may be ensuring that their favorite bird is protected. That is what they understand, that is what they can comprehend. But eventually that grows into someone who is really vocal about the environment.
Walk so others can run
And also the other thing that has helped me has been to appreciate the people who came before I started activism, because it’s important to know that we stand on the roots of certain people. We stand on foundations that were set by certain people. We stand on their shoulders. I personally, the respect I have for people who started activism even before I started, I think that is another thing that has helped me. Because I know that every new birth is a result of an old womb. I believe that there wouldn’t be an existence of my activism if someone hadn’t set a certain foundation. There something that people say that some people walked so that others could run. And I believe it sometimes because some people may have walked so that people like me can run in the activist space and be able to access certain spaces that we never thought that we would be able to access.
So for me, it’s appreciate the community within the movement and also appreciate the people that came before us in this space. And also appreciate yourself and the work that you are doing.
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