NGO building an army of grassroots climate solution actors in Kaduna

An NGO, Women Initiative for Sustainable Environment (WISE), says it is building an army of grassroots climate solution actors in Kaduna State to strengthen local solutions to the global climate crisis.

WISE Founder and Programme Director, Mrs Olanike Olugboji-Daramola, made this known to the Newsmen in Kaduna on Tuesday.

Olugboji-Daramola said the climate solutions actors would be trained and empowered under the 2023 to 2024 Women Earth Alliance (WEA)-WISE Nigeria COVID-19 and Climate Resilience Programme.

She said that 30 grassroots climate solution actors would be trained in addition to the 30 earlier trained in 2022.

She said that the programme was open to leaders of women and youth organisations and groups, interested in working for renewable energy access, health, and climate resilience.

She also said that the programme was open to women and youths groups interested in profitable and scalable green micro enterprise and environmental sustainability in their communities.

“We welcome climate solutions advocates, influencers, champions, organisers and entrepreneurs who want to become climate solution actors.

“We equally want entrepreneurs, advocates and ambassadors in the areas of tree planting and growing, clean cooking technologies, renewable energy products distribution and sales,” she said.

The founder and programme director said that the selected participants would be equipped with a series of training on Green Microenterprise Development and related support.

She said that the participants would be committed to specific activities during and beyond the training period in four phases – preparation, training, follow-ups, and Implementation.

She added that the training team would provide follow-up support for each participant, as well as linkages to allied resources.

Olugboji-Daramola said that 30 grassroots women had undergone similar training in 2022 under the two-year programme funded by WEA, a United States-based NGO.

She said that WEA provides leadership, strategy, and technical training for women leaders to scale their climate and environmental initiatives and connects them to a global alliance of peers, mentors, and funders.

“The COVID-19 and Climate Resilience Programme, which began in March 2022, was designed to build the capacities of 60 women in social entrepreneurship and reusable energy within two years.

“The goal of the programme is to develop the capacity and improve income of women and youth groups while addressing climate change issues in their communities.

“This is through profitable and scalable green micro-enterprises as an action in finding solutions to climate issues,” she said.

She added that the second goal was to ensure that communities were better informed about women-led climate solutions.

This, according to her, will equip women with the needed information, knowledge and skills that will put them at the frontline of addressing environmental challenges and climate issues.

The founder said that the expectation at the end of the project was that 60 women would be generating profit through sale of at least 3,600 clean energy cookstoves and charcoal briquettes.

She added that 3,000 native trees would have been planted in two neglected public spaces and three degraded sites by the end of the project, with at least 90 per cent survival after a year of planting.

“The programme is also expected to reach 3,500 residents with information on women-led climate solutions through awareness campaigns,” she said.