Environmental Activism in Malawi

Successful evening discussion with YSD Malawi

„Weltwechsel Niedersachsen – when, if not now? „: With this slogan, the action weeks on global societal issues in Lower Saxony took place in November 2020. The first event was the webinar „Environmental activism in Malawi“ organised by YSD members from Malawi and Germany. It opened up a digital room for almost 30 guests.

After a short round of introduction of the participants and the organisations YSD Malawi and YSD Germany, Joseph introduced us to the current political situation in Malawi. A few months ago, the newly elected president Lazarus Chakwera tried to bring together the politically divided people of Malawi. He is supporting local industries, young people, and the environment.
The latter is meanwhile threatened by powerful actors that are attracted by the natural resources like coal, uranium, and oil. The impacts of coal mining are devastating not only for the environment, but also for local communities. Same could occur if oil drilling in Malawi caused any incident in the big freshwater lake. Also, Covid-19 is affecting the country: on the one hand due to the poor health system, but also due to restrictions that make it difficult for people in the city to sustain their livelihood. YSD Malawi is still carrying on with its educational work and continues to support farmer’s communities to restore and improve the traditional way of farming that they are re-establishing. Apart from restoring traditional and environmental friendly farming and irrigation techniques, YSD’s support aims to strengthen the resilience and self-organization of farmers. Educational workshops had to be done under strict hygienic conditions and further follow-up was made by phone to prevent pandemic incidents. YSD Malawi also strengthened the remote support for farmers through television and radio programmes on climate resilience amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lecture and Discussion about political changes, pandemic and new forms of climate resilience work

Monday, 2nd November 2020 | 20:00-22:00 GMT+2 (Malawi) | 19:00-21:00 GMT+1 (Germany)

COVID-19 is affecting the southeast African country Malawi, the political situation is changing drastically and further mining activities and exploitation of fossil fuels in Lake Malawi are being prepared. In our meeting, members of the environmental NGO Youth for Environment & Sustainable Development will introduce us to their work, tell us about current societal and political developments in Malawi and how these affect educational work and environmental activism. After their inputs, there will be time for questions and discussions.

The event will be held as part of the weltwechsel Niedersachsen event series.