An international non-profit organisation, ‘Ashoka Africa,’ said it is collaborating with young stakeholders in diverse sectors to co-design innovative and sustainable solutions to environmental challenges in Niger Delta communities.
The organisation said the move aims at achieving environmental sustainability and climate justice, not only in the region but in Nigeria and beyond.
Pan-African Co-Lead of Ashoka Africa, Angelou Ezeilo, stated this at a one-day workshop in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital.
Ezeilo said already, a community of practice team, comprising select stakeholders, who are ready to learn, share experiences, exchange ideas, identify systemic gaps in the climate justice sector, and develop the synergy needed to effectively solve them, has already been set up.
The workshop was themed: Collaborative Solutions for Sustainable Planet – Community of Practice in Climate Equity and Environmental Sustainability.’
She urged participants to become effective advocates for climate justice policy, and actively engage with policymakers and institutions to influence decisions that promote environmental sustainability and climate justice in Nigeria.
Explaining that the programme aimed to engage the youths and ensure they have the tools and resources to speak to policymakers, Ezeilo advocated the promotion of environmental sustainability.
She said, “Today was such an amazing day and the goal was to establish a community of practice. A community of practice is built on stakeholders. So we brought together the oil industry, NGOs, environmentalists, young people, and people who are interested in the sustainability of this planet and proffer solutions.
“We had a World Cafe in which we went around and discussed different questions about the topic and one of the solutions that I thought was critical was engaging young people and making sure that they have the tools and resources that they need to have the power to speak to politicians and advocating what they need to promote environmental sustainability here in Nigeria.”
Ashoka Africa Diaspora Manager, Iveren Ityoikaa, said for the attainment of environmental justice and sustainability, the older generation must take responsibility for their actions in contributing to the devastation of the environment.
Ityoikaa added that the younger generation must be given room to learn and protect the environment.
She stated, “Though the youths are angry and restive, they are not the most affected by climate change. The most affected are the children, people in primary school and below, and their voices too should be heard.
“So we are proposing something like a kids’ assembly, where the kids form an assembly and make policies that the House of Assembly can look into and adopt.
“We talked about making environmental knowledge and consciousness part of the curriculum, but not the same way of sitting in the class, but about making it fun and engaging. A lot of children in the cities don’t understand the environment, they have not spent time in the environment, climbed trees, built tree houses, they have not cultivated the soil or raised a chicken.”
Ityoikaa explained that when children do that at an early age, caring for the environment, and keeping somewhere clean, they tend to grow with that and know that they can contribute to solving some of these problems of the environment, saying it gives them a voice.
Ityoikaa added, “So that when they see an adult not doing the right thing they question it.”
An Ashoka fellow, and founder of Durian Nigeria, Tony Joy, insisted that for environmental justice to be achieved, all strata of youths, especially their leaders in the communities, must be engaged to proffer solutions.
She said, “Very importantly, we have also talked about inter-generational conversations, bringing the older generation and the younger generation to one table, because we know that everyone has a value that they can offer and also bring something to the table that affects the environment because the planet affects us all.
“It (planet) is not choosing if we are old or young, if the sun is shining, its shining on both the old and the young, so if you want to create solutions, everyone should be part of that conversation.
“We come to them and meet them where they are, we are not going to be the solution provider, we are going to co-create solutions, so we need their anger, we need their youthfulness, we need their resourcefulness, and so we are going to meet them where they are, because if we bring a solution to them, they might not take it, but we need them to give us the solution they think would work and that is why we are creating a table for them to speak also.”
Venture and Fellowship Manager for Anglophone West Africa, Ikenna Anyadike, emphasised that the community had concluded modalities to invite the youths and ensure that they join the process of tackling the environmental challenges in the region.
Anyadike noted, “We are coming with an idea of shared responsibility and showing how certain activities have kept certain societies where they are in terms of environmental degradation.
“We will also be sharing and showing how the impact of these present-day actions will impact future generations within those communities.
“One of the things I know about Nigerians is that Nigerians are big on posterity and so, if we can show, what we would do, how this would impact the future generation, either negatively or positively, depending on what is going on.
“I believe that they would come to the table and there would be the willingness to sit down to explore opportunities that can better help the environment for posterity for the coming generations.”
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