By Solomon Gumah, GNA
Tamale, Nov. 11, GNA – Youth Empowerment for Life (YEFL Ghana), in partnership with the University for Development Studies (UDS), has supported 10 students with a total of GH¢40,000 to implement community-based climate adaptation and mitigation initiatives in the Northern Region.
The initiative, funded under the Danida Strategic Partnership (SP2) Project with support from Oxfam in Ghana, seeks to strengthen youth participation in addressing climate change and building resilient communities within the Savannah Ecological Zone.
Each of the 10 selected students received GH¢4,000 to implement climate action projects focusing on climate adaptation, community sanitation, water conservation, climate-smart agriculture and other interventions aimed at reducing the vulnerability of communities to climate change.
Mr Emmanuel Ndukwe, Project Lead for the Danida SP2 Project at YEFL Ghana, disclosed this during an experience-sharing and knowledge-exchange platform organised in Tamale in collaboration with the Faculty of Sustainable Development Studies (FSDS) of the UDS.
He said the initiative formed part of an ongoing partnership between YEFL Ghana and the Faculty, which began with the organisation of the Savannah Climate Conference last year.
Mr Ndukwe explained that the students were selected through a competitive application process.
The platform, he said, was organised to enable beneficiaries to share experiences, showcase the outcomes of their interventions, identify implementation challenges, and make recommendations to improve future climate action initiatives.
Mr Ndukwe said YEFL Ghana believed young people had a critical role to play in championing climate adaptation efforts, particularly within the Savannah Ecological Zone, which continued to experience adverse effects of climate change.
He noted that rising temperatures, prolonged droughts, and erratic rainfall patterns continued to threaten livelihoods, especially in communities where the majority of residents depended on rain-fed agriculture.
According to him, supporting young people to initiate community-level climate interventions was intended not only to address local environmental challenges but also to inspire other young people to undertake similar initiatives.
“At YEFL, we believe addressing Climate issues should be a whole of community approach where young people play critical roles within this approach. It is on this backdrop that we are supporting young people to engage in climate action, with the hope that others will see them as role models and take up local climate initiatives in respective communities,” he said
Dr Eric Duorinaah, Senior Lecturer at UDS and Project Coordinator of the FSDS, commended YEFL Ghana and its partners for collaborating with the University to promote the active participation of young people in addressing climate change.
He urged the students to become ambassadors for climate action and advocacy in their schools and communities to deepen public awareness and help minimise the effects of climate change on livelihoods.
Miss Baba Nafisah Mpag, one of the beneficiaries, who implemented a project on Climate-Resilient Organic Gardens for Women at Dalun, underscored the importance of promoting organic farming practices among farming communities.
She expressed gratitude to YEFL Ghana and its partners for supporting the initiative.
GNA
Edited by Eric K. Amoh/Bertha Badu-Agyei/Lydia Kukua Asamoah
Reporter: Solomon Gumah
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