Nigerian Youths Celebrate 2011 World Environment Day with a Climate Workshop on the Hills and Art & Crafts Exhibition

The World Environment Day (WED) was established by the United Nations General Assembly to mark the opening of the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human and Environment. WED is celebrated around the world in many ways, including street rallies,bicycle parades, green concerts, essay and poster competitions in schools,tree planting, recycling efforts, clean-up campaigns and much more. Celebrating WED is about the inspirational power of individual actions that collectively become an exponential force for positive change.

The Nigerian Youth Climate Coalition (NYCC) aims to inspire, empower and unite ordinary young people around a vision of a cleaner and fairer future.  In collaboration with GreenBack Nigeria, NYCC organised a Youth Climate Workshop on Hills and an Art &Craft Exhibition in Gwarimpa, Abuja to Celebrate the World Environment Day 2011. 

The workhsop was organised for Young Mountain hikers and youth advocactes for the evnvironment  on the hills of Gwarimpa, Abuja to raise awareness on Climate Change, forest and Biodiversity Conservation on Saturday June 4th 2010. It was also an opportunity for young people to express their concerns towards environment as the theme of World Environment Day 2011 is "Forests: Nature at Your Service'. People climbing the mountain were from all walks of life, including members of environment protection organization, doctors, entrepreneurs, artists and college students.

First they discussed the impact of climate changes on forest, living environment of humans and human health. Then they raised various suggestions on promoting environment protection based on personal experiences, such as use of clean energy and proper disposal of garbage. In the end, all the people signed  up to show their  commitment towards the push for the climate change commission Bill which will make Nigeria have a sustainable plan for  protecting the environment.

The workshop was inspired by the strong intergenerational support recieved from the Building Nigeria's Response to Climate Change  (BNRCC) Project  through the "Engaging Nigeria Youth on Climate Change Peoject" Funded by the BNRCC and  inspiration from the International Youth Climate Movement.

 
"In our daily life, as young people we can do a lot to protect the environment. One of them is by raising awareness about the need to protect the environment. The second one is by changing our lifestyle," said Esther Agbarakwe, Founder and National coordinator of Nigeria Youth Climate Coalition (NYCC).

An Art &Craft exhibition was also held through which the tight connection between humans and the nature and people's wish to live in beautiful and sound environment were conveyed. it was also to raise the pulic awareness on the 'artists for climate' project that will be launch soon

Nigerian Youth Climate Coalition (NYCC) and Partners had on January.14th 2011 organised a Live Twitter Conference (Tweet-Chat) to discuss on the theme 'Climate Change and Young people in Nigeria' #ccnigeria with Rev Nnimmo Bassey, Chair Friends of the Earth International (FoE)  as Key Presenter. The event attracted over 70 Participants from 11 countries including the UK, Kenya, Sri Lanka and USA . On Feburay 25th 2011 NYCC also launched the Biodiversity Young Professionals' Forum (BYPF-Nigeria) supported by the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, LEAP Africa, actionaid Nigeria, Center LDS and Dekeyser&Friends Foundation, Geneva.  The Young professionals' forum had since been linked to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Young profesional forum and local conservation organisations across the country, notably the Nigerian Environmental Study/Action Team (NEST) and Nigerian Field society.

Esther Agbarakwe & Oluwasomidotun Adeniyi Babayemi

Abuja, Nigeria

http://www.nigycc.org/