By @SadrachNirere |
There could be several reasons and excuses to give in order to send us back to classes on Friday, but there are several demands we need addressed and your excuses won’t work. Lets us imagine a life of a young boy or girl in Kiboga village somewhere in Uganda. There after school time was about picking roadside mangoes, herding goats and cows in thick bushes and green grasslands to playing football made of banana fibers.
Today is 2030 and this life is long gone, they can only find it in history books, now all they see are dry streams and failing crops. They cry as they see their mothers walking long distances for firewood, yet in hot temperatures and frequent intense weather events.
In Uganda we are saying NO and we are committed to putting our voices high and demand for urgent climate action.
So, WHAT MATTERS?
1. Uganda in particular is mapped prone to facing catastrophes due to a changing climate. Already we have seen people and cattle die in Northern Uganda due to lack of food and pasture, as a result of prolonged droughts, dry wells/streams yet the region is already experiencing Arid conditions that come with dry winds, little or no rainfall. There has to be direct responses from government so that a desert doesn’t eat us up.
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| Children tilling there compound to plant some food crops / Internet Photo |
2. Uganda has good policies on conservation, ecosystem protection and restoration but day and day we see wetlands degraded by industrialists, kaveera manufactures have not been stopped and no one pays for either polluting or having no product after-use policies. Therefore we need to wakeup and act fast by accelerating implementation and enforcement.
3. Uganda ratified the Paris Agreement in 2015, But the parliament has never had a single debate on climate change issues. This hampers political support to implementation and enforcement efforts. And also a slow reach of the goals ensued in the Paris Agreement.
Everybody must know that we are in crisis, we are a blessed generation to know about it and we are the generation to create solutions towards it. Time to act is now.
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| The writer during a lake clean up on the shores of Lake Victoria. |
4. We need to see unprecedented global action, those that have caused more environmental harm like some countries and big corporate companies must take it into account to be responsible and do something.
In conclusion, focusing to securing a safe environment is triple benefit for Children, Youth and Adults as well a human right, therefore there should be opportunities and space created to have them participate in finding solutions to a changing climate.
Tags: #FridaysForFuture #ClimateStrikes #GretaThunberg
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