Opinions

Youth involvement in environmental education

ENVIRONMENTAL education is a crucial instrument for driving the environmental movement and fostering the development of healthier and more actively engaged communities. It is the process whereby people learn about their environment, acquire knowledge, skills, values, experiences, and the will to act both individually and collectively to address current and future environmental concern. It is estimated that over 60 percent of Nigeria’s population are under 30. The importance of youth involvement in environmental education towards addressing critical environmental issues such as flooding, waste, pollution, and climate change in order to achieve a more sustainable future cannot be overemphasized. This is due to their increased understanding, strength, and resilience, as well as their higher stake in environmental sustainability. There is no doubt that environmental education helps young people become change agents by increasing their awareness, community engagement, and a sense of civic responsibility, hence influencing more young people in Nigeria to be interested in environmental issues. This has been influenced by increased environmental education initiatives championed by youth-led NGO’s and other volunteer groups. However, it is impossible to say that environmental education in Nigeria has reached a mature stage. Because environmental education through community engagement can be daunting considering the peculiarities of various communities, some organisations are developing easier ways for seamless and more effective environmental education activities. An example is Agenda Climate Change for Africa Initiative, a Nigerian based NGO, currently working towards developing environmental education plan in local communities through its initiatives such as Service-Learning Project, Community Based Environmental Project and School Based Environmental Initiative.

The Agenda Climate Change for Africa Initiative plans to leverage the placed based learning ideas from Cornell’s Environmental Education and Community Engagement Course by identifying communities, including rural and urban areas, which will be beneficiaries, and critically assessing the environmental issues facing those communities. The organisation also plans to collaborate and develop partnership with relevant stakeholders such as traditional rulers, schools, local government authorities, community elder’s forum, students’ unions, youth pressure groups, market women associations, government agencies and civil society organizations to design, plan, implement, monitor and evaluate environmental education programs in most communities regularly.

The organisation will reach out to young people in local schools, student unions, and youth pressure groups for volunteering for communities through the service-learning project, with a clear vision, expectations, and benefits of the e education project, as well as relevant information about environmental issues, impact, and solutions. This community engagement process is vital to the success of any environmental project. Other awareness and sensitisation programs, such as workshops and seminars, house-to-house environmental engagement, townhall meetings, and social media engagement, will be carried out as part of the project’s strategy to enlighten community stakeholders on the impacts of these challenging environmental issues, such as climate change, and to collectively develop workable solutions applicable to address these problems within the communities. Environmental clubs will also be established in schools and communities for students and youth to further advance their understanding about environmental issues, encourage their participation in environmental campaigns and engagements in community projects.

Other areas, including watershed management, proper waste disposal practices and stormwater infrastructure, will be incorporated into the environmental education plan. Other climate change initiative including tree planting will be carried out to combat deforestation and erosion. The community based environmental is targeted to be people centered, ensuring that youth and the communities are involved at every stage of the project. Furthermore, the school-based environmental education initiatives will involve the establishment of environmental clubs to further advance the policy reform campaign for the incorporation of environmental education in the curriculum. Also, keep-the-school-and-community-clean campaign through waste management programmes will be executed to achieve proper waste disposal alongside clean water initiatives to provide safe access to clean water.

It is my utmost belief that this environmental education plan will close the existing education gap and inspire more youth to come on board to drive community engagement with their resilience, innovation and energy towards achieving a sustainable and safe future for all.