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LOYOLA CENTRE FOR MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS
Kenyan Teens Sound Alarm on Environmental Crisis, Urge Collective Action
BY TERESIA MUIA
Young environmentalists from Edmund Rice Education Centre in Ngong, are raising their voices about the mounting environmental crisis in Nairobi. During a recent advocacy session facilitated by the Loyola Centre for Media and Communications (LCMC), these passionate teens called on the government and fellow citizens to take urgent action to protect the environment, describing it as "our common home."
The interactive letter-writing session, held on October 1, 2024, was part of LCMC’s Children Environmental Rights Project, which aims to empower children in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030. These young advocates expressed deep concerns about the increasing pollution in their neighborhoods, highlighting waste dumping and untreated sewage as significant threats to public health. "If we do not keep the environment clean, we will not be able to survive in it," one of the children remarked in their letters, urging both authorities and citizens to take responsibility for ensuring a safe, clean environment.
This letter-writing initiative is one of many advocacy strategies deployed by LCMC to encourage children engagement on environmental issues. The program is inspired by global and spiritual calls to action, including Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’, which emphasizes care for the earth. Since early this year, LCMC has been conducting training sessions on environmental rights at various schools and children institutions across Nairobi.As the environmental crisis worsens, these teen advocates believe their call for action cannot be ignored.
