By Fatou Dahaba
In collaboration with UNICEF Gambia and the State of Mic, Clean Earth Gambia is hosting the first-ever National Children and Youth Climate Change Conference at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Center on Saturday, July 13th. This event aims to engage children and youth in climate advocacy and actively empower them to address climate change.
The event brought together Cabinet Ministers, senior government officials, civil society organizations (CSOs), and children to discuss critical climate change and resilience issues.
According to the organizers, the convergence will foster collaboration between stakeholders and play a pivotal role in amplifying the youth’s voices and highlighting the importance of climate resilience.
The theme for the conference was “Accelerating Children and Youth Voice for Climate Resilience in The Gambia.”
The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Rohey John Manjanag, said the active participation of youth in climate change resilience is critical because the country is vulnerable to its impact.
“Our oceans are warming up and changing and threatening unprecedented sea level rise, summers are getting hotter. In many parts of the world, with temperatures rising to as high as 45 degrees, we will all agree that 2023 and 2024 recorded the highest unprecedented temperature when March about 100 years ago.”
According to her, to positively revise biodiversity, enhance food security, and undo climate change, all shareholders must join in supporting and implementing the 2024 World Environment Day slogan, which says we are a generation of installations.
The environment minister states that engaging young people in climate change is important and a must.
Bakary Badgie, Minister of Youth and Sport, pointed out that climate change is no longer an issue for environmentalists or a small group of people to handle; instead, it has become a global menace that everyone should be concerned about.
“The starting point for what is going to give us the change is to galvanize the support of young people, including children and women, to promote and stop the issue of climate change. As young people, we all have a responsibility to protect our environment and be ambassadors.
Ms. Nafisa Binte Shafique, UNICEF Country Representative to The Gambia, said climate change is a child rights issue, and everyone must join the effort to tackle it for the betterment of children.
“Gambia is identified globally as one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change and among the 10 countries most vulnerable to coastal erosion and sea level rise in the world, erratic flooding, storms, and drought. Children in the Gambia are the most affected by climate change.”
Fatou Jeng, Founder of Clean Earth Gambia, said that over the past months, they’ve been engaged with the country’s children and youth in different places to ensure they’re able to implement government projects and demonstrate that there’s a strong political will and leadership to implement climate solutions.
“As young people, we have a role to play and crucial stakeholders in advancing climate action. This conference will be an avenue that we would use to make sure we are not only engaging in policy dialogue but also making sure we come out with tangible recommendations and solutions that we will present to the government to make sure the projects that are implemented are more youth and child friendly sensitive.”
14 year old David Williams from Farafenni North Bank Region spoke on the impact of climate change to the country sure as natural disasters, drought, deforestation amongst others.
He called for collaboration from all stakeholders, such as intergenerational dialogue, engaging stakeholders, and educational initiatives.
