Watch podcast episode here.

In this episode we interviewed: 

• Ilda Cerveja, part of the Youth Platform for Climate Action in Mozambique, which aims to involve children and young people from Mozambique in Climate Action in the Maputo Region and representative of the Lusophone Core in Mozambique

• Joel Almeida, Youth and Gender Liaison Officer for Climate Action at the United Nations Development Program in São Tomé and Príncipe and also São Tomé and Príncipe’s representative on the Lusophone Hub, and

• Verónica Choconesa, Angolan, oil and gas drilling engineer and entrepreneur in Angola, the country she represents in the Lusophone Center for Transparency.

Joel, can you talk a bit about how young people and teenagers can get involved in the cause of Climate Action?

First of all, we need to understand that climate problems affect young people most of all. Young people and teenagers, because there are many challenges we face in the face of climate change and for me, one of them is the issue of health.

Climate change increases the likelihood of natural disasters, and this leads to droughts and floods and the subsequent proliferation of vector-borne diseases, such as diarrhea and other diseases that directly affect young people and adolescents, because their bodies are more susceptible to this type of disease. So, given these challenges, I think that we young people should be the priority and essential agents in Climate Action.

And involving them can be a very important aspect if we are to effectively achieve the climate goals. How can we involve young people? Firstly, by listening to them, trying to capture their voices, their opinions, because they are the ones who are most directly affected in this respect, and it is important that we effectively include all young people so that their voices are effectively heard. And we young people are also innovators, we are the ones who have the most ideas, and through these ideas we can create sustainable, impactful solutions that can be useful for creating more solid policies in the face of climate change.

Ilda, do you know the Children and Youth Manifesto? Is there one in Mozambique?

Yes, yes, I happened to read a bit of the Climate Action Manifesto of the Children and Youth Parliament of Cabo Verde.

In Mozambique we have a children’s and young people’s declaration, there are two by the way. The first we drew up as part of the creation of our platform on climate change, and the second as part of the organization of the first local conference of children and young people on climate change in Mozambique. This declaration was then shared with Youngo and contained our key messages for COP28.

Verónica, speaking a little about climate resilience, how do you see the role of the school, community, people, adults, in short, everyone, in promoting climate resilience here? Here? All over the world.

In fact, when we leave our core, I’m talking about a continental sphere, clearly our vision is different, and we need to understand the need and the urgency.

Last year, for example, you were at the COP, you were in South Africa, but the impacts end up being everywhere. There are no impacts in zone A, there are no impacts in zone B, because, in fact, as Dongo said, one of the things there in our activity that we had at the Children and Youth Academy, that we only have one planet A, and we need to realize that there is no planet B, no Mars, no Jupiter, much less Venus. Young people are the main feature, young people are the superior matrix.

It’s important to highlight us young people in entrepreneurship, us young people in climate action, us young people in the whole issue, in school… And looking at the bigger picture, many don’t have a voice. I’m very proud to see young leaders here in Cabo Verde, born leaders, and what we’re experiencing today, and I’m going to take it to Angola too. I’ve already taken, sent, in fact, as I can say, a suggestion that we should also take the Children’s and Youth Academy to Angola, because, clearly, we have youth debates about climate, but we don’t have an academy for that, and Cabo Verde represented it very well, and I loved it very much, and we’ve been talking about it in schools, But there is still a deficit on this, we need to work more in schools, we need to work more not only in schools, but in academies, in universities, because it’s not a question of fashion, as everyone says, now everything is fashionable, no, it’s a question of necessity, of urgency, and we need to act.

Ilda, Verónica said that there is a deficit in climate promotion, would you like to mention some initiatives that can promote climate resilience?

Well, there are several initiatives that can promote climate resilience, but to begin with, it depends on the environment in which you intend to work, for example, during the Children and Youth Academy, I realized that here in Cabo Verde we suffer a lot from drought, so first you have to look at the situation in Cabo Verde, and then define the best ways to transform Cabo Verde into a country that is more resilient to climate change. So, one of the concerns here in Cabo Verde is the issue of water, because the water comes desalinated, there is little rain, so it is better, perhaps, to implement techniques that can capture rainwater, so that this water can be, although it falls for a short time in small quantities, that it can be used for agricultural activities, and also taking into account the reduction in the level of rainfall here in Cabo Verde.

Now, for Mozambique, we in particular are affected by floods, but at the same time we are also affected by droughts, so the issue of adaptation and building climate resilience is somewhat complicated. For example, for this year, in addition to floods and droughts, we are also affected by cyclones, for example, something unusual happened in Maputo this year, droughts were predicted, so our institute that manages this area of climate and that informs in advance about the climatic events that are going to occur, informed the farmers, at Maputo province level, that droughts were going to occur and everyone was prepared for the drought. Okay, the drought happened, but suddenly there was a lot of rain that caused floods, and then what died with the drought and what survived in the drought, ended up dying with the flood, and now the farmers are so bad off, they have nothing, everything has died.

So, to say that building resilience is somewhat complicated, but we can implement actions such as building more resilient buildings, for example, because when cyclones occur in Mozambique, many houses are destroyed, schools are destroyed, so building more resilient houses is one of the activities that is extremely important for Mozambique, resilient schools. The issue of rainwater management is also an important one, because by managing rainwater properly, we can reduce the level of impact of floods and at the same time we can conserve that water so that we can use it in times of drought. There are also activities that are done like planting trees, because a lot of the time people have this idea that when we’re developing the city, we have to put in lots of sidewalks, build our huge buildings and they forget that trees are important, because they also help to reduce floods, they help to reduce the impact of cyclones, so building cities taking into account the sustainable development goals is extremely important, taking into account sustainability is extremely important.

Joel, I’ve noticed that you talk a lot about projects. In this context, I’d like to know what difficulties you face in climate projects and how you overcome them?

There are many difficulties, first of all I mentioned the issue of health, but we can also say the issue of education, because when there are these impacts of climate change, it also affects health, especially for everyone. In relation to health, when there is flooding, for example in the case of Mozambique, schools are subject to not working for a long time and access to education becomes increasingly limited.

In relation to health, there’s also a question of mental health. This uncertainty about what the future will be means that young people go through moments of stress, boredom and that aggravates other types of illness, such as depression and so on. There are many challenges that we, as young people, children, teenagers and even adults, face in these kinds of circumstances. And in relation to the projects, this campaign to raise awareness and train young people, I think it’s very important, we as young people are leaders, we are leaders not of the future, but of the present.

And our actions, done in a synchronized way and in unity, can create actions that can be expanded. And it’s very important that we also have this concept of what climate change is. And we, as young people, being there, seeing the drought, in the case of Cabo Verde and Mozambique, we, in particular, don’t have much incidence of drought.

However, we have already experienced floods. So, if young people are already aware of climate change and are more involved in these issues, they will be able to give better answers. And we can also create better solutions.

In São Tomé, for example, we have young people who are creating sustainable projects. We have a young man who uses bags made from banana fibers to replace plastic bags.

We also have a young woman who uses PET bottles and plastic bottles to make brooms. So these are examples of projects and initiatives that can be useful in mitigating this issue of climate change.

Verónica, is there anything you’d like to add?

Actually, just to reinforce what my colleagues have said, I need to understand that the deficiency on the youth side is information. Because if we don’t have information and training, we’re deficient. Because the first steps are not yet seeing the consequences.

We are seeing the consequences, but there have been floods. What are floods? Young people don’t know what floods are, what droughts are. There was a cyclone.

Okay, there was, all right. Is it normal nature? So, if young people start to understand the problem that plagues us, but the things that, when we’re talking about climate change, global warming, the increase in greenhouse gases, the production of greenhouse gases, when we talk about decarbonizing, green hydrogen, people say, what is green hydrogen? But we’ve already looked for solutions. But how am I going to find solutions if I don’t know what the causes are? And who are the causes? What are the consequences? We need to understand that, in order for young people to understand what they are experiencing, we need to pass on the baton, the word.

That’s what we’re doing here. We are young people of climate action, we are young people from the Children and Youth Academy, but knowledge cannot stop here. And we’re already doing the podcast here, which is a solution to the deficit, isn’t it? What it means to provide information, both formal and informal.

Empowering young people. It’s very important that young people are trained. It’s important for moms and dads to start teaching their children how to separate waste at home.

What about you, Ilda? How would you like to add?

Well, I know you asked for the final message, but I’d like to emphasize one more thing in the previous question about projects. I agree with everything my colleagues have said, but it’s extremely important to find people who believe in us. As well as needing training and other aspects that they mentioned.

It’s important to find people who believe in you. For example, here in Cabo Verde, we are at the Children and Youth Academy. It means that you have found people who believe in youth, believe in the power of young people and are investing in each of us who are here.

We have also started working with Save the Children in Mozambique. People who believed in us and gave us training, because often when a young person comes up with a project and then has little experience, people don’t believe them. It’s a start-up, you’ve never done it and you come up with a project, people don’t believe you.

But it’s important. There are people who believe in you and start with you and train you. It’s important to value these people who believe in us.

Now, as for the final message, well, we are affected by climate change. It’s a fact. Often we can advocate against climate change for policy transformation.

Policies can exist and not be applied. That’s also a fact. We as young people must try to do our bit.

We’re going to do it at our level, as far as we can. Let’s start creating environmentally sustainable projects, let’s start building in a more resilient way, respecting nature, respecting the environment. We’re going to start doing anything that can help fight climate change and help our countries develop sustainably.

What about you, Joel? What’s your final message?

Well, I think that question is a little difficult to answer. However, I’ll start by saying that if we want change, we have to be the change.

Therefore, climate action requires a lot of responsibility from us and a willingness to do it. You take the garbage out of the ground today, put it in a bin and see someone else, your colleague, put it on the ground. So, this responsibility of always trying to do something, despite the others who aren’t cooperating, requires a lot of will from us, this persistence and resilience to always be able to keep doing it.

So my advice to you is to develop skills. Skills that will allow us to always be resilient, to lead, to know how to act and to pass on the message to our fellow human beings, so that we can get more soldiers in this cause that is the fight against climate change. In order to be more susceptible to adapting to and mitigating its effects, which affect not only me, not only you, but all of us.

That’s it. Well, the experiences I was able to capture on Maio Island is that I see a lot of involvement from young people and that, for me, makes me very proud, as I said in our session. The young people of Cabo Verde have this drive, this innate desire to make a difference and that is an inspiration to me.

I’m going to take this precept, this competence, this reason, this mission with me, in my heart, so that I can also pass it on to other young people in São Tomé and Príncipe and that’s why I think that if we want to make a difference, we have to be different.

Can you conclude, Verónica?

I’ll start by saying that the experience here on Maio Island was spectacular, you know?

I’m going back.

Because I fell in love with all of you, I fell in love with the Children and Youth Academy, look, I fell in love with everything here, the beaches are beautiful, the island is beautiful, I fell in love above all with the willpower you have to leave your habitat, come here, stay a week with all of us there and wow! As Uncle Nuno says! Wow! Wow! So we need to realize that Cabo Verde is in my heart. I don’t know how to speak Creole in my heart.

Author

Ilda Cerveja, Joel Almeida and Verónica Choconesa