Listen to the Future: The Importance of Young People in Environmental Action
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At Haller’s 20th Anniversary celebrations this year, Edward Plaice (author of Youthquake) explained the unique demographic phenomenon taking place in Africa today. The continent’s population is expected to almost double to 2.5 billion over the next 25 years, a change that will account for half of all global population growth. With a rate of population growth three times the global average, Africa is set to experience a ‘Youthquake’. By 2050, Africa’s youth population, already the largest in the world, is projected to double to over 830 million.
This sets up a unique set of challenges for the continent: providing education, job opportunities, housing, and social security will undoubtedly be challenging. But as Plaice reminds us in his book, “There is a need to handle with care narratives that mitigate the relative certainty over a few decades of demographic projections for Africa with catastrophic predictions and demographic determinism.”
Children and young people are powerful agents of change, bringing new ideas and perspectives that can shape a better future for us all. This year’s World Children’s Day centres on the theme “Listen to the Future”, actively encouraging the world to listen to children’s hopes, dreams, and visions for the world at large, promoting children’s right to participation.
World Children’s Day commemorates the Declaration of the Rights of the Child by the UN General Assembly on 20th November 1989. The Declaration made it the duty of the international community to put children’s rights in the forefront of planning. By elevating children’s voices, we can include their priorities in our actions today.
One of the key priorities echoed by children around the world is the climate and their concerns over the state of the planet they are one day set to inherit. Taking children’s rights and views into account would lead to more ambitious and effective policies on climate protection.
At its core, the climate crisis is a child rights crisis. Children are consistently the demographic most impacted by climate change, yet they are the least responsible for it. Nearly half of the world’s children live in countries that are at extremely high risk from the impacts of climate change. The growing number of extreme weather events puts children at risk and disrupts their access to education and healthcare. Children born in 2020 will face on average 2-7 times more extreme weather and climate events than their grandparents.
Every year environmental factors take the lives of 1.7 million children under the age of 5.
Despite the disproportionate impact of climate change on young people, just 2.4% of climate finance from key multilateral climate funds supports projects incorporating child-responsive activities.
Haller’s focus is on equipping the next generation with the skills and knowledge needed to combat environmental degradation, with education on climate change aimed at helping young people realise their power as agents of future change.
We’ve worked with young people across Kenya planting trees, developing vegetable gardens in schools, collecting litter, and releasing over 70,000 turtles. We opened the first free children’s library in Kenya at the Nguuni Education Centre, with over 10,000 books, it provides an essential educational resource for children in over 60 schools. The Haller Farmers App has a dedicated education section, focused on providing children with information on climate change and tools they can use to combat global warming.
As the African continent’s youth population grows over the next two decades, we have a unique opportunity to educate and empower the next generation of environmental activists. This process must work to amplify this generation's voices and concerns.
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