An arid farm in Kenya Photo: Shutterstock
‘Water is like gold’
Hannah Brock spent time in Kenya and reports on the effects of global warming that she saw already happening
The title was a statement by Esther Musili, Ukamba Christian Community Services (UCCS).
Friends seem persuaded of the urgent need to prevent further global warming. What I wish to impress upon you is that while climate change is an issue of livelihoods, peace, security, comfort and, ultimately, survival – it is also a matter of justice. In recent centuries, the industrialisation of Western nations has been the main contributor to huge greenhouse gas emissions. Yet the populations of these states are not the ones feeling the effects of this pollution. Poorer nations, which do not share in the opulent standards of living that we enjoy because of this industrialisation, are suffering first and worst.
I am taking part in Christian Aid’s gap year scheme – a ten-month internship that gets young people engaging other young people about issues of global justice. Christian Aid is not operational. We do not send British personnel abroad to developing countries; we work solely through local partner organisations. This October, along with nineteen other young people on the gap year scheme, I travelled to Kenya for a fortnight to visit two of the six hundred partner organisations that Christian Aid works with, to see their work and understand how they are coping with the effects of climate change.
