Images of flooded roads and houses, people losing their lives and livelihoods in storms and hurricanes, and endangered species both in water and on land as a result of oxygen depletion and wildfires. It’s easy to spot the grim news when it comes to climate change, and it can be just as difficult to see the positive stories.
But there is also hope to be found—and this is precisely the point that IAS Denmark (International Aid Services) wants to convey to Danish youth.
That is why the organization, together with their Kenyan partner, IAS Kenya, has collaborated with Hovedstadens Kristne Gymnasium and sent students from the high school on a study trip to Tharaka in Kenya, so they can see firsthand both what climate change looks like in practice and what can actually be done, and what is already being done, to avoid the worst possible future scenarios. The project is supported by the GLOBUS fund.
For IAS, which is a church-based organization with roots in the Pentecostal movement, the focus on climate efforts is a natural extension of the organization’s other work, says Christoffer Wilki-Kurtzhals, who is the engagement leader at IAS Denmark and who accompanied the high school students on the study trip.
“IAS represents a church community, and taking care of and nurturing Creation is central to us, and it has naturally been important to us as well,” says Christoffer Wilki-Kurtzhals.
“Many of the people we work with in the Horn of Africa and East Africa are directly affected by climate change, so it is natural for us to address it in our projects,” he says.
At the same time, the organization has also sought to lay the groundwork for Danish and Kenyan youth to meet each other and see themselves as part of a global youth community.
“Even though they live in two different worlds and two different realities, they are part of the same global community. Climate change is an example of an issue that we share across national borders. People often say that young people are the future, but young people are the present,” says Christoffer Wilki-Kurtzhals.
In Kenya, 80 percent of the population is under 35 years old.
During the visit to Tharaka, the Danish high school students helped plant trees, met with local groups of young farmers, and visited a university where lecturers and students discussed the initiatives and solutions being explored in research. During the visit to Kenya, they also visited both the Danish embassy and the UN complex in Nairobi.
“It is important for us to help inform the youth about what is being done at local, national, and international levels. This is not an issue that can be solved easily. But we want to leave the youth with the sense that there are indeed actions they can take and that global engagement makes a difference,” says Christoffer Wilki-Kurtzhals.
Whether the students actually left with this impression is not entirely clear.
“We have a diverse group of students, but my personal impression is that, for many of them, climate change, which they have heard so much about, suddenly became something very concrete. It makes an impact to meet the people living under the changing conditions brought on by climate change and to see some of the initiatives that can make a difference. However, it’s clear that some are also confronted with living conditions that are difficult to witness, especially when their everyday lives are so different from what we know,” says Christoffer Wilki-Kurtzhals.
In Tharaka, 40 percent of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. “My sense is that most of the students come away with the feeling that, ‘Now I’ve seen this. This makes me want to get involved.’ I find that this sense of seeing possibilities and solutions can help move students from a feeling of powerlessness to the belief that there is something they can do,” says Christoffer Wilki-Kurtzhals.
The article was first published in Udfordringen.
