An Australia-based non-profit organisation, Climate Tracker, has hosted 17 young Africans from across the continent to a Climate Change Journalism Workshop in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The workshop was aimed at training young journalists on the art of reporting climate issues and in their communities.
The event hosted participants from nine countries, including Egypt, Botswana, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Nigeria.
A Corps member and CAMPUSLIFE man, Caleb Adebayo, was picked from Nigerian to represent West Africa.
The workshop had training sessions during which the participants were taken through topics ranging from climate change science and United Nations (UN) negotiations on climate change.
Terhi Lehtinen, the Deputy Head of Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Ethiopia, opened the event with a discussion about EU’s efforts to make Africa safe from the climate change effects.
According to her, a new legislative framework was ratified by EU parliament to reduce carbon emissions by 40 per cent by 2030. She said: “The European Union believes taking action on climate change goes hand in hand with economic transformation.”
Mr Binyam Yakob, a UN negotiator from Ethiopia, spoke on the negotiation process and how African countries could explore Public Private Partnerships (PPP) to achieve green goals.
Session on African Union’s efforts in climate change negotiations was taken by Leah Naess, who represented the African Union (AU).
There were also sessions on data journalism, media tools and investigative journalism taken by the Director of Climate Tracker, Chris Wright. The participants were given hands-on training and were divided into different working groups to exchange ideas on how to tackle the climate challenge.
At the end of the week-long event, participants went on a tour of Gullele Botanical Garden in Addis Ababa, the biggest botanical garden in Africa. Afterwards, they were engaged in a tree-planting exercise in communities around the capital city.
A participant from Botswana, Mmabatho Motsamai, promised to impart the knowledge learnt from the training in her community, saying: “I am glad to be a part of this. I learnt a lot from the facilitators, especially about climate journalism. I have built a great network of young climate journalists and I hope to impart the knowledge learnt on them.”
Leena El-Deeb, a journalist from Egypt, said she was excited about visiting Ethiopia for the first time, noting that she was thrilled about the experience she had at the workshop.
Caleb said: “This is an awesome experience for me, having worked with most diverse teams on the most difficult projects and delivered on them within short periods.”
He expressed optimism that the knowledge garnered at the workshop would transform communities in Africa. He added: “I intend to do a step-down training so we can have more competent climate journalists.”
He praised The Nation for creating CAMPUSLIFE platform, which he said had helped him accessed opportunities. He said: “I attended periodic journalism workshops, which The Nation held to train students on journalism. This platform made me a fine journalist and prepped me for this opportunity.”
Caleb is the founder of Earthplus, a Lagos-based non-profit organisation, committed to environmental sustainability in Africa.
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