BaCCC/Module 7/Lesson 3/part 3
Contents
Choose your climate change project
It is time for you to stake your claim to a climate change communication (awareness) campaign or an action project in your community.
For one last brainstorm, see the suggestions below or read UNICEF’s “Youth for Climate Action” at:
and scroll through Voices of Youth at:
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You can write and submit a blog post here: (Then be sure to amplify what you wrote by posting a short blurb and the link to social media.) You can take a permaculture course (you might be able to get a scholarship; see, for example, and start a small community garden with your friends. Plant climate-resilient seeds. Share your results – including beautiful photographs – with others (without revealing the location of your garden). You can organise a demonstration, sit-in, climate strike or march. If you are artistic, create beautiful signs and banners with others to display during the event. You can become an amateur expert on the impacts of climate change in your community and the mitigation and adaptation efforts needed. Then you can offer your voice, as a youth representative, to government committees and panels and policymakers. You can organise a team of volunteers to restore a damaged ecosystem (after talking with local ecology experts). Then share the results, including photographs, with others. You can use your creative talents to create a series of social media memes and run them on every social media platform. Then run the series again, and again. Interact online with those who comment. (Be polite with deniers and naysayers, but block them if they become rude or insulting.) You can take more courses; perhaps you can take them with your friends or others in your community: You can write a climate change song or some slam poetry (a poem written to be performed) and record it or perform it live, perhaps at an outdoor concert to raise money for the victims of an extreme weather event. You can set up a neighbourhood watch programme so that youth can help out elderly people and those with disabilities should a disaster arise and they are in need. You can create a presentation about local climate change mitigation and adaptation to give to local schools or service clubs. Invite a journalist or write about it yourself for the local newspaper. You can attend climate reality training to join the Climate Reality Leadership Corps and then give the presentation far and wide: 7 Reasons to Attend Climate Reality Training[6] You can organise a tree-planting contest between schools or communities. (But be sure to consult an arborist to make sure you are planting the right kinds of tree seedlings in the right areas to be resilient to climate impacts.) Remember to arrange the follow-up watering and care for the seedlings. You can set up a climate youth corps – a group of young volunteers ready to take on any climate change mitigation or adaptation projects in your community. You can offer to do a weekly radio show that talks about climate change impacts, mitigation and adaptation through the eyes of the youth – and perhaps the retired and elderly as well – in your community. (Remember, middle-aged people usually have to work and care for their homes and families, but retired people have more free time.) You can help your community build cyclone shelters (or repair and rebuild homes after an extreme storm), especially if you are good with your hands and good at fundraising. (Remember what you learnt about the special needs of women or girls and people with disabilities in Module 5 – Intersectionality.) Be sure you have all the necessary permits before starting. You can start a project like this plastic brick factory, which makes bricks out of plastic waste, especially if you are good at making connections and finding financial support: Africa's First Recycled Plastic Brick Factory[7] (Or you may come up with a different way that your community can recycle and reuse plastic waste.) You can just talk about it. Bring climate change up everywhere you go; ask everyone you meet and come across how they feel about the climate emergency. Listen well. Become known as “that climate change person” in your community! |
Any one of these projects – or the fabulous ideas that you and your friends will come up with – would be a wonderful contribution to your community . . . and your own future!
It is time to choose and get going with your project.
May the wind be always at your back.
Resources and Links
The Psychology Behind Climate Action: What Inspires People to Step Up:
The Psychology Behind Climate Action: What Inspires People to Step Up[8]
How to Plan the Best Event in 10 Stress-Free Steps:
How to Plan the Best Event in 10 Stress-Free Steps[9]
So You Want to Host a Youth Conference: How to Make Your Next Event Truly Engaging:
So You Want to Host a Youth Conference: How to Make Your Next Event Truly Engaging[10]
South Africa Let’s Respond Toolkit
If you have trouble accessing the video, a summary is available below.
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If you have trouble accessing the video, a summary is available below.
H5P Object Parameters
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]If you have trouble accessing the video, a summary is available below.
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American Association for the Advancement of Science (SciLine):
American Association for the Advancement of Science (SciLine)[11]
Skeptical Science explains the climate change science, and debunks and rebuts global warming misinformation at:
UNCC:Learn (The One UN Climate Change Learning Partnership):
World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal:
World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal[14]
References
- ↑ UNICEF, n.d. Youth Action
- ↑ Voices of Youth, n.d. Voices of Youth
- ↑ Vices of Youth, n.d. Blog
- ↑ Permaculture Uganda, n.d. Permaculture
- ↑ UNCC Learn, n.d. Climate Change
- ↑ Climate Reality Project, n.d. 7 Reasons to Attend Climate Reality Training
- ↑ UNICEF, n.d. Africa's First Recycled Plastic Brick Factory
- ↑ UVIC, n.d. The Psychology Behind Climate Action: What Inspires People to Step Up
- ↑ Social Tables, n.d. How to Plan the Best Event in 10 Stress-Free Steps
- ↑ Charity Village, n.d. So You Want to Host a Youth Conference: How to Make Your Next Event Truly Engaging
- ↑ SciLine, n.d. American Association for the Advancement of Science (SciLine)
- ↑ Skeptical Science, n.d. Skeptical Science
- ↑ UNCC Learn, n.d. UNCC Learn Courses
- ↑ World Bank, n.d. World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal
