The world’s 10 youngest nations are all in Africa. This hasn’t escaped the attention of multinational corporations, who have identified African youth as a largely untapped market base. The KR Foundation points out that “there has been little consideration of the contribution of this accelerated consumption to climate change and environmental degradation – problems that are likely to drastically worsen the burden on communities in lower-income countries.”

In partnership with the KR Foundation, our multi-country climate change and low-impact living project, Earth, Our Home, involves 50 local radio stations and 750 youth reporters in five countries, making it our largest project to date. Youth reporters in South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Ivory Coast engage their audiences in discussions around the local realities of climate change to support the adoption of sustainable, low-impact ways of living among communities not traditionally involved in environmental protection.

The ultimate goal of this project is to turn African youth into critical consumers who are less susceptible to marketing ploys, and who take into consideration their place on this planet when making decisions about what they buy, how they live, and what they imagine for their futures.

Climate change and low-impact living training
Mbandaka, DRC, July 2018

Photos: Rowan Pybus