1. Elizabeth Wathuti
Kenya
Kenyan climate activist Elizabeth Waathuti addresses delegates at the COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow.
Image: Flickr/COP26
One of the highlights for Africa at the 2021 COP26 Climate Conference was 26-year-old Elizabeth Wathuti’s speech on the state of sub-Saharan Africa’s environment. The Kenyan climate activist appealed to the emotions of delegates and called on them to consider what their inaction was doing to the African continent and its people.
“Please open your hearts,” she said. “If you allow yourself to feel it, the heartbreak and the injustice is hard to bear. Sub-Saharan Africans are responsible for just half a percent of historical emissions — the children are responsible for none — but they are bearing the brunt.”
Wathuti, founder of Kenya’s Green Generation Initiative, was inspired by fellow Kenyan and Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai to establish an organisation that plants trees and food forests to improve the local environment, and tackle hunger in Kenya. The young activist is outspoken on her social media and is also an avid supporter of the Fridays for Future movement.
2. Emmanuel Cosmas Msoka
Tanzania
Tanzanian children’s rights activist Emmanuel Cosmas Msoka is a UNICEF Youth Advocate for water, sanitation, and hygiene. The young innovator created a pedal-powered hand washing machine in 2020 to help combat COVID-19 in his community and with the help of local organisations, has supplied over 400 handwashing stations across northern Tanzania over the course of a year.
His interests in innovation and volunteering has led him to encourage other people his age to come up with inventive solutions to significant problems, and to call on young people to become generational leaders.
3. Stacy Owino
Kenyan student, Stacy Owino co-created an app that helps protect women and girls from FGM.
Image: Supplied with permission.
When she was just 18 years old, Kenyan student and women’s rights advocate Stacy Owino co-created an app to help bring an end to female genital mutilation (FGM) in her country.
Three years later, Owino is not only a determined young woman studying STEM, she’s also an African representative on the Youth Sounding Board for the European Commission, and was honoured at last year’s Young Activists Summit held at the UN in Geneva for her work towards eradicating FGM.
When we asked her why it was important for young African girls to take up space, Owino told Global Citizen: “Something the world needs to know is that things are changing, and us as African youth are really taking up these spaces. We're not going to let you tell us about us. We will tell you about ourselves.”