Climate change resilience taken to grassroots

Wilbrought Ndlovu, Sunday News Reporter

COMMUNITIES should be conscientised about climate change so that they know how to adapt and mitigate its effects that are showing in prolonged hot or cold spells, cyclones and other unfriendly weather phenomena, a climate change stakeholder has said.

Speaking at an engagement workshop with residents of Mzilikazi, Bulawayo on Thursday, Sisonke Working Together Trust director Mr Themba Phiri said residents and youths were supposed to be alert to adaptation and mitigation measures as well as be alive to various measures put in place by the Government and its partners.

He said the purpose of the workshop that was held in partnership with the Environmental Management Agency (EMA), Bulawayo City Council (BCC) and residents of Mzilikazi was to discuss the causes of climate change, possible measures to adapt to climate change and ways to mitigate its effects as well as other environmental management related issues. It was also meant to build community resilience against effects of climate change as well as bringing in youths to participate in adaptation and mitigation programmes.

“Our mitigation and adaptation thrust has been to cut on emission from dumpsites, landfills and at household level. We have, together with EMA and BCC been building the communities’ capacities on how to adapt to climate change by minimising on waste disposal and making it a point that all the stakeholders involved in the programme apply principles of solid waste management that focuses on refuse and recycling of waste that economically strengthen vulnerable households,” said Mr Phiri.

He added that learners at Mzilikazi and Lobengula Primary schools have set up climate change ambassador clubs which idea has even cascaded to rural Matebeleland South. The climate change ambassador clubs act as a conduit between parents and stakeholders in mitigating the effects of climate change. 

Urban communities, Mr Phiri said, have been disposing plastic, bottle and other waste without due diligence and those were some of the major contributors to the changing climate.