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AAP journalists complete journey with “We Have Faith” caravan
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Five young African journalist were aboard the "We Have Faith – Act Now for Climate Justice" caravan when it completed its 17-day journey through six African countries to Durban, South Africa on Sunday, November 27th, 2011.
Host city of the COP17 climate change negotiations, the caravan’s arrival in Durban culminated in a massive inter-faith rally featuring Archbishop Desmond Tutu, UNFCCC head Christiana Figueres and host of religious leaders and performers all calling for a fair and legally-binding outcome for Africa at the climate talks.
The five journalists had won fellowships from the Africa Adaptation Programme’s Media Capacity Building Project, which sponsored them to join the caravan and report on both its events and the environment and development situations in the countries it passed through. The journalists, who along with four other AAP Journalism Fellowship recipients will now remain in Durban to report on the COP, also received professional mentoring and logistical assistance along the way.
The "We Have Faith" campaign was instigated by a pan-African movement of faith communities, leaders and youth who have mobilised to express the widespread desire among Africans for a just and robust outcome at the climate negotiations. The caravan collected signatures for a petition calling on leaders attending COP17 to take a moral approach when dealing with climate change.
On the road to Durban
The caravan began in Nairobi and travelled through Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Botswana before reaching South Africa. In Tanzania at the first of the caravan’s national concerts, the Tanzanian Vice-President, Mohamed Gharib Bilal, signed the petition. “Climate change is something that we all face and as a nation, climate change is a big challenge to us,” said Vice-President Bilal at the event.
From the road the AAP-sponsored journalists chronicled their experiences. On the way to Dar es Salaam, as the caravan passed through remote regions near Mt. Kilimanjaro. Bernice Atabong from Cameroon filed this piece after speaking with local people:
“Daniel a Maasai, a 20-year old from around Mount Kilimanjaro, tells me that when he was young the mountain top was covered with snow and the areas around the mountain were extremely cold. But these localities are hotter now and the snow is gradually melting.”
After Tanzania the caravan continued on to Malawi and its capital, Lilongwe, travelling through villages, organising ‘flash mobs’ and collecting signatures for its petition. A large concert was held at Civo Stadium in Lilongwe. Lily Mengesha, another of the AAP-sponsored journalists, described her experience:
“Malawians are feeling the effects of the immense changes that have occurred within their country. Rain doesn’t come on time as it used to and drought is no longer a rare occurrence: where it was once a ‘visitor’ that used to come once in a while, now it is almost a ‘resident’. It has effectively ‘settled’ in some parts of the country and is around year to year.”
The final rally
The final rally and concert was held at Kings Park Stadium in Durban. The line-up of artists included Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Juliani, Arno Carstens, Yvonne Chaka Chaka and HHP. Host Nobel Laureate Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu was presented with the campaign’s petition, which had been signed by more than 40,000 people.
Archbishop Tutu made a powerful plea at the gathering for rich and poor nations to work together on climate change, saying no one nation could fight this enemy on its own. "As faith leaders we need to move together to change this situation in the world that is ours. This is the only home we have that has been given to all of us by God. He wanted us to live in gardens not in a desert,” said Archbishop Tutu.
AAP at the COP
Along with sending a total of nine journalists to report onCOP17 and the outcomes for Africa, the AAP also held a side event on November 29 in which building the media’s capacity to cover the climate change issue was a key topic. The side event highlighted the foundational partnerships being formed in AAP’s countries that are providing better media capacities for accurate and timely coverage of climate change and improved access to climate data and information management from regional and global partners. One of the young AAP Journalism Fellowship recipients spoke at the event, detailing her experience on the caravan.
About the AAP
The Africa Adaptation Programme was launched in 2008 by the United Nations Development Programme in partnership with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) and with US$92.1 million support from the Government of Japan. The AAP was established under the Japan-UNDP Joint Framework for Building Partnership to Address Climate Change in Africa, which was founded at the Fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in May 2008.
More on AAP's Baobab Coalition and the "We Have Faith - Act for Climate Justice" campaign can be found at the links below.
www.facebook.com/pages/Baobab-Coalition-Journalists-AAP/129005357180515
