As the global community intensifies calls for greener energy and plans to tackle climate change, over one hundred students from ten secondary schools in Anambra State have been charged on the need to respect trees and the environment for preservation of human habitat.
The students were charged during a brainstorming programme, tagged; “Anambra Climate Boot Camp” organised by Green Environment and Climate Change Initiative in Awka, over the weekend.
Convener of the event and the Director of the Green Environment and Climate Change Initiative, Mmachukwu Obimdike, while addressing the students, said these will help young people understand that the world is moving towards renewable green energy and Green Solutions which if they don’t understand it at the early stage, will be difficult to contribute towards achieving the universal sustainable goal.
Obimdike said the essence of the event is to empower the students to be able to join hands with the rest of the world in tackling climate change which has become a global challenge.
She however appealed to the government at all levels to provide an enabling playing ground and partnering non-governmental organisations to enable them thrive and contribute meaningfully towards the development of the society.
The Executive Director, Green Initiative for Humanitarian Aid and Development, Onyekachi Chukwu, described the Climate bootcamp as a catch them young initiative which will no doubt help the people to understand that the Environment they destroy today will fight back tomorrow.
Chukwu therefore encouraged the students to note that the environment is where they live and so must do everything possible to safeguard it including planting of trees and cultivating good habits of waste disposal.
Another respondent, Doctor John Ogbodo, who is a lecturer in the department of Forestry and Wildlife, Nnamdi Azikiwe University (Unizik), Awka, while Commending the Anambra Climate Boot Camp Initiative, said it will help the students to understand the steps and factors that can mitigate climate change as well as key into the Clean Green Initiative of the Professor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State.
The Director, Forestry and Wildlife, Anambra State Ministry of Environment, Mrs Onyinye Achugamuonye said it was the human beings that need the environment to survive hence the urgent need for all to join hands in preserving it in order to reap the benefits.
The students and their teachers unanimously agreed that the knowledge and practical training acquired during the first Anambra Climate Boot Camp will no doubt give them advantage in contributing to tackling environmental degradation but will also empower them by putting food on their tables in their future endeavors.
It was gathered that the students were also taken through practical sessions on how to build solar systems for homes, Skill sessions of turning tyres into tables and training on environmental art painting among others.
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