2008 INTERNATIONAL YOUTH DAY CELEBRATION WITH GLOBAL XCHANGE VOLUNTEERS

The Global Xchange volunteers with support from the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and the British Council on 11th – 12th August 2008 organised a 2-day event to celebrate the International Youth Day (IYD) as well as to take action on Climate Change.

The theme of this year’s IYD was “Youth & Climate Change: Time for Action”. The event was well represented by youth drawn from the six geo-political zones of Nigeria and the Global Xchange Volunteers. The first day of the event was a sensitization forum where the youth had the opportunity to increase their knowledge on Climate Change and the causes of global warming. Mr. Taiwo Adewole a consultant from Sustainable Energy, Lagos gave a detailed presentation on “Climate Change: Youth Call to Action on Environmental Sustainability”. This session gave the participants an opportunity to a better understanding to Climate Change and Global Warming. Mr. Joe Adusei of United Nations Volunteers did a presentation on “Volunteering as a means to mitigating the impact of Climate Change”.


The day 2 of the event was an outdoor event where the youth went out to the streets and parks of Abuja to sensitise the people on Climate Change, recycling, some human effects of Global Warming and how to take personal responsibility in mitigating these actions. The youth also undertook some actions by cleaning up some of these parks which had some waste littered around the environments.

After the outdoor event there was a debriefing session where the youth who were involved in this activity shared their experiences on the outdoor activity while out on the streets and parks of Abuja.

At the end the 2 day event, the youth were not just better informed but geared up to take personal responsibility and action towards mitigating those personal actions that also contributed to the effects of Climate Change. A communiqué was drafted and the final version to be sent to the Federal, State, Local Government, leaders and policy makers to call them to action to initiate policies that will guard the citizens and bring into consciousness the need for the involvement of the citizenry to this cause as well as ensure the implementation of existing environmental policies.