Kenya: To Help People In Need, Let Us Care Of Mother Earth
The opinion of young people for living “I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink”
As you think about the poor and the helpless, what is the feeling that can help to change the situation? It takes only a few minutes to know the needs of slums, dry areas, orphans, the refugee camps. It is true that an individual cannot solve the needs of the world, but we can do something together.
We young people always think we don’t have money or the right resources to help the poor. How can we help a person in need? It is very interesting to find that some young people have already realized that there are many ways of helping the less fortunate in our society. Truly most of us young people have the intelligence and creativity to find the best way of helping others, despite having limited resources.
Some young people in East Africa, through the ‘Laudato Sii’ club, realised that we can solve this problem not only by helping with financial resources or expertise but also by taking care of Mother Earth. The Office of Justice Peace and Integrity of Creation Franciscans Africa has hosted a whole weekend of Interfaith Youth Climate Mobilization. The Forum was held on 15 and 16 September 2023 at the Catholic University of East Africa (CUEA, Nairobi) with the participation of 600 young people. We heard testimonies from Muslims and Christians committed to preserving the most important resource for a future of hope in our country: our Mother Earth. With the theme “Harmony for a green and sustainable world”, the forum was an opportunity for young people of faith to network and have a dialogue on promoting climate justice and integral ecology. This forum included a discussion with members of the Masai community of Isinya/Olepolos, a community that has been affected by drought and hunger like many regions of Kenya. Their testimony as victims of the current climate crisis touched the young people and leaders present. It confirmed that social inequality and the abandonment of some local communities are some of the vulnerability factors of the impact of climate change.
The concrete steps taken by young people to save our planet and their willingness to solve the climate crisis through personal and community commitment were a powerful testimony for me. They convinced me that I, too, can use my small intelligence to try to change something in my community of study, the university where I am attending the second year of Education Sciences. So I can say that the forum was a turning point for me. Now I am trying to mobilise my fellow students to take care of Mother Earth by creating an environmental club.
Considering the effects of climate change on many disadvantaged people, a question arises: “What do you think leads to poverty?” This is an important question that most of us do not know how to answer properly, but let’s imagine that in every part of the world, there are enough trees to change the climate in a positive way: how much percentage of poverty would we have reduced?
Sarah Otieno