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Participants in a group photograph
By Our Reporter, Lafia
The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), has trained no fewer than 60 people to effectively advocate climate-related issues in their communities in Nasarawa State.
Mr Ango Adamu, Executive Secretary YMCA Mada Hills, disclosed this at a two-day workshop on Advocacy/Capacity Strengthening for climate-impacted communities on Wednesday in Lafia.
The “Advocacy/Capacity Strengthening” training was organised in collaboration with the Association of Small Scale Agro Producers in Nigeria (ASSAPIN), with support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs through Oxfam in Nigeria.
He said that the training also aimed at supporting climate change clubs in some selected schools, climate change desk Officers, students, and Area Inspectorate office, Ministries of Agriculture and Environment.
Adamu explained that the training became necessary to the communities, especially in the 5 additional Local Government Areas where the NGO scaled up its activities to effectively advocate climate change issues with the appropriate authorities.
Adamu said, “We have scaled up our activities to five additional 5 Local Governments this year, which include Doma, Obi, Keffi, Wamba, and Keana. All the participants came from these 5 LGAs.
“Originally, they were not part of us, we are giving them the same knowledge we have given to others in the past to equip them to perform their climate change tasks as climate change Champions.
“Instead of asking for personal or individual gain they can put up community collective requests in the form of community development plans to be able to approach government and every other duty bearers.
“There is a limit you can help people, it is not sustainable if people are not trained to take action, so we are doing a lot of capacity buildings to help communities to sustain the project as it’s ending by next year,”.
Mr Joshua Jonathan, ASSAPIN National President said the essence of the training was to strengthen the capacity of the participants to advocate for climate issues, especially in the area of agricultural intervention.
“You know most of our community members are farmers and so the knowledge they get today will not only help them on climate change but they can also use it to advocate to people in the authority for other areas they have needs.
“You can ask severally but you may not get the result because you are asking wrongly. So, advocacy and lobbying is one of the steps and approaches people are using to get what they want,” he said.
Dr Edward Anzaku, Lecturer in the Department of Social Work, Federal University, Lafia, the lead Facilitator, while making his presentation on how to mitigate the impact of climate change described it as a monster, saying it affected humans in all ramifications.
“So, we are to educate ourselves concerning it, and of course do well collectively to ensure that we reduce the impact and make society livable,” he said.
Rev. Dr Yohanna Angolo and Justina Anjugu participants, thanked the organisers for exposing them to new knowledge on advocacy and lobbying, noting that they would extend the knowledge to others in their communities to reduce the effect of climate change.
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