Jonah Kirabo, a Ugandan storyteller and environmentalist, has urged students and staff at St Francis Namagoma to join the fight against climate change.Kirabo stated at an event held on the campus of St Francis High School in Namagoma that the climate crisis will not be solved unless students and young people in schools are educated about climate change and empowered to take action.
The event was held on Friday 24, February 2023.
“It is very sad to see that our school curricula do not help young learners to understand what is happening and how they can get involved, yet if the planet is destroyed, all that they have learned will be useless on a dead planet. “Famine and floods continue to displace people across the country and the continent,” Kirabo said.
Kirabo, the founder and team leader of the Green Futures Initiative, which had headlined the event, stated that children in Uganda spend over 19 years in school and that it is critical that they are taught about climate change, which continues to be one of the most serious threats to their future.
He gave the school climate education toolkits to help students and teachers learn more about climate change and how they can take action.
St Francis High School director Lubya Joseph and headmaster Nyanzi Benedict thanked Kirabo and his team for educating them and their students about climate change and promised to work more closely with them to ensure that their students lead sustainable lifestyles.
Director Lubya stated that while climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing the world today, young people have not been adequately empowered to address the issue.
“When I heard that these environmentalists wanted to help us to understand climate change better, I was very happy. “I’m excited to continue working with them,” director Lubya said.
Kirabo thanked the school for welcoming them and thanked his team and partners from Fridays for Future Uganda for their assistance.
The team also planted 200 trees with the students to help restore degraded areas around the school.
Kirabo’s Green Futures Initiative is currently running a nationwide campaign to plant 5 million trees by 2025. The Global Youth Leadership Centre is supporting the campaign.
