Climate Change Education and Awareness Project for Rural Communities

Associated Organization: Ability-in-Disability Initiative

Themes: Agriculture, fisheries and food security, Crosscutting Issues, Energy, Forestry, Gender, Health, International climate negotiations, Poverty and vulnerability, Water

Regions: West Africa

Countries: Nigeria

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Overview:

The aim of this project is to enhance knowledge and improve access to information on climate change in 20 hard-to-reach, rural communities in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area, Enugu State, Nigeria in Sub-Saharan Africa.  This will be achieved through the sponsoring of post-primary schools’ debating contests and video screening. 

The project target area face geographical, climatic and ecological problems from environmental degradation, soil erosion, abuse of woodland for fuel, indiscriminate bush burning, deforestation, increasing unreliable rainfall, and oil pipeline vandalism.   Access to electricity, good roads, pipe-borne water and infrastructure for social development in these communities remains very poor.   Enhancing knowledge and improving access to information on climate change through Schools’ Debates and Video Screening is a new concept in these 20 hard-to-reach, rural communities and can be capitalized upon as a viable way to provide trained manpower for the offering of educational and communication services to overcome barriers to share knowledge and information on climate change and best practices towards adaptation and mitigation.  Members of these benefiting communities will also be encouraged to speak-out and or have a member of the Project Team record their native knowledge and experiences in adapting to past changes that could benefit other communities, especially but not limited to soil degradation and soil erosion.    This project Team shall be made up of 5 members of Ability-in-Disability Initiative and 7 persons representing the project target beneficiaries.

At various workshops and debating contests, Project Team will provide workshop leaders to train students, local farmers, teachers, leaders of religious sects and heads of village age-grade associations on modest adaptation and mitigation techniques such as tree planting, the use of alternative fuel such as biogas, solar lamps and other renewable sources of energy, improved soil management, water harvesting and to mention but few.

The project duration shall be 2 months and is expected to reach no fewer than 4,000 beneficiaries.  The primary target group for this project is youths, particularly young boys and young girls of post-primary school age and younger.  This is partly because these youths lack proper knowledge about climate change and partly because of our strong belief that the youths of today are the leaders of tomorrow and that as agents of change, it behooves on the youths to facilitate the needed change towards compliance with modest adaptation and mitigation techniques and best practices for climate change.  Other beneficiaries include adults made up of men, women and youths with varieties of specialties and age range who are ordinarily resident in the communities.  For this project target group, the project is great opportunity to share their valuable experiences and learn from others formal exchanges of knowledge on climate change adaptation. 

We expect positive impact over the community through this project.  These will include drastic increase in the number of rural dwellers, especially youths who are aware about climate change, drastic increase in discussions on the issue of climate change adaptation and mitigation techniques and best practices, enhanced opportunity to share valuable local experiences and learn from others formal exchanges of knowledge on climate change adaptation and drastic reduction of incidence of environmental degradation, soil erosion, abuse of woodland for fuel, indiscriminate bush burning, deforestation, and oil pipeline vandalism. This project will also lead to better generation of agricultural crops, improved livestock and better food security.