Journey

CARAVAN

The idea of a youth caravan came to the African youth representatives during COP 15 in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009. The Indian youth had carried out an extensive nation-wide caravan in their country and had staged climate hearings in different states where communities had deeply engaged in sharing their stories on climate change and the civil society, business and political leaders had also chipped in with solutions and ideas to address climate change. To the African youth, this was the beginning of a dream!

The African Youth Initiative on Climate Change (A.Y.I.C.C) took it upon themselves to plan for this caravan and in 2010, plans were underway. By sharing the idea with other likeminded organizations, the idea took a much larger shape and by late 2010, during the National Youth Conference on Climate Change held in Nairobi, the dream was to have youth representatives from all of Africa and beyond travel to Durban – South Africa for the COP 17 meeting via road.
The Faith communities in Southern Africa were seeking to influence the COP 17 in much the same way as the youth and as fate would have it, the conversation of having the two factions synergize their efforts led to the creation of the ‘WE HAVE FAITH – ACT NOW FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE’ campaign.

The Youth Caravan will lead the way in mobilizing communities to lend their voice to the world`s leaders and negotiators and inspire them to act without fear. The Caravan will make it impossible for the negotiators not to consider the future of the largest population of Africa – the youth, as they will be seeking to come up with a climate agreement during the negotiations in South Africa.

EVENTS

The main Caravan events will be youth led climate concerts to be held in the various capital cities of the countries that the Caravan will be passing. These include Nairobi, Dar Es Salaam, Lusaka, Gaborone, Lilongwe and Soweto. The concerts will be organized by youth from various backgrounds and we seek to involve you in making these concerts as impactful as possible.
The Trans African caravan of Hope, which is being organized by civil society led by Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, will also be passing though these countries and we encourage you to be part of the activities organized by civil society as well.
Apart from the concerts, we are encouraging creative and innovative ways of passing our message across to our leaders. This includes petitions, letters, video messages, documentaries, poems and theatre. We encourage you to join the ‘WE HAVE FAITH, ACT NOW FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE’ community on Facebook to get more ideas as well as share your story with the rest of the world… YOU MATTER!

GET INVOLVED IN THE “HAVE FAITH – ACT NOW” YOUTH CARAVAN

Is there any inherent talent you posses? Have you ever asked yourself if it mattered? If you mattered, for that matter? Well the answer is… YES!
“We Have Faith – Act Now for Climate Justice” seeks to bring in the humanity back into the UN negotiation process. You can help bring this vision into reality. You can use your gifts and talents to spread our message, the message of climate justice.
Join in with the various country representatives and get started, YOU MATTER!
Contact Winnie(at)ayicc.net to get involved!