Young Kenyan climate activist named global water, youth champion
Anita Soina who has been selected as the Sanitation and Water for All Global Youth champion and will serve until the end of 2024
23-year-old Kenyan climate activist Anita Soina has been selected as the Sanitation and Water for All (SWA) global youth champion and will serve for a period of two years, until the end of 2024.
In an official announcement on Monday, the global partnership of 78 governments including Kenya, donors and Civil Society Organisations, that is hosted by the United Nations(UN) explained that Ms Soina will be a youth champion for SWA.
“ Ms Soina will advocate for the human rights to water and sanitation around the world, defend the political prioritisation of these issues, and ensure the youth’s voice is heard in decision making," said the statement.
She will also represent SWA at several events, including the upcoming United Nations 2023 Water Conference that will take place at the United Nations headquarters from March 22 to 24.
Speaking to the Nation in an interview on Monday, Ms Soina’s joy knew no bounds.
“I am a very excited person today for the appointment given to me by SWA to be their Global Youth champion. The appointment speaks to me directly that ‘Soina , we see you , we hear you and we appreciate you," she told Nation.
“I have been in the space trying to be part of solution providers for global community challenges and coming from a community where access to water is a challenge, I am committed to partnering with other necessary stakeholders to make access to clean and safe water for my community a reality," she said.
Passing a message
She added: "I dedicate this appointment to young people across the world who look up to me as their inspiration and I am passing a message of together, we can be the change we want to see in the world. I am calling upon all the stakeholders and interested partners to join me as we find solutions to water and sanitation challenges,” Ms Soina urged.
SWA and her partners are working together to increase political prioritisation of water, sanitation and hygiene as well as to ensure adequate financing and building better governance structures and institutions to achieve SDG6 .
The young activist who comes from the Maasai community travelled down memory lane to the time when her community would drive livestock down to the banks of the Mara River .
She discloses that today, the mighty waterway is a shadow of its former self – a victim of deforestation, mining, poor resource management and climate change.
Ms Soina narrates how shocked she was upon visiting home recently as she watched people using stepping stones to cross the river, rather than bridges which were once a necessity.
Extreme weather patterns linked to climate change have triggered more frequent and severe droughts across Kenya, decimating crops and livestock, and deepening an already fierce hunger crisis.
The lack of water, Ms Soina says, is fueling violent conflicts over dwindling resources as agrarian communities struggle to survive.
She highlights that this is also triggering other issues like preventing young women and girls – who are usually the main carriers of water – from completing their education. And it’s indirectly contributing to a rise in child marriage as families look for alternative sources of income.
Her deep love for climate and environmental issues however found their way to her DNA when she was in high school where she chaired her local scouting club and took a keen interest in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“Eventually, I settled on getting involved with the goal on climate action because I felt it needed more young voices,” she said.
Ms Soina’s first environmental projects focused on tree planting which in her view is an easy place for young people with limited finances to start but soon realised that many young activists, including herself, often felt disconnected from sustainable development and conservation due to the technical language and jargon too often used by these sectors.
“I started to think about how to make conservation fun and how to simplify the language, so that more people – particularly young people – would want to participate in the process. I wanted to win more souls and have people understand that you don’t need a degree in environmental science in order to get involved. In fact, you can use arts and entertainment to raise awareness on a global scale,” she said.
Her efforts were so successful that Sshe went on to establish the Spice Warriors – a group of climate change activists in the country.
Her subsequent book, “The Green War” breaks down environmentalism into simple terms and actions for the non-scientific community and recently , she also recently launched The Soina Foundation to address other social issues like sanitation, health, education and sexual and reproductive wellness.
However , despite her impactful grassroots advocacy, Ms Soina realised that the biggest barrier to the change she was trying to make was political prioritisation.
“If you look, for example in my country, many legislators are not even aware of the Paris Climate Agreement. They don’t know what’s happening with climate change and water scarcity. When they don’t have information, they don’t participate,” she points out.
In Kenya’s 2022 General Election , Ms Soina was the youngest person ever to run for office in the country as she sought the Kajiado North MP seat, but she was unsuccessful.
“I told myself, maybe our political leaders are not listening the way they should. So why not step up and try to get into this space and make change, then we don’t have to wait for people to march or strike for things to happen.”
She is motivated by the fact her efforts were noticed by Homabay County Senator Moses Otieno Kajwang who is the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee and the caucus on Climate Change, who invited her to join him in a project that will educate Kenyan legislators and parliamentarians about environmental issues.
