(Durban's Ayanda Mabanga with fellow performers Khumbulani Ngwenya and Skhumbuzo Myeza pictured behind Lindo Mbatha)Young activists from Soweto, Durban and Cape Town will help to blaze a new trail of awareness about climate change through Africa over the next month, as they travel from Nairobi to Durban in a “climate caravan”.
The caravan of 185 young African activists will arrive in Durban in time for a mass climate change rally hosted by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. This rally will be the climax of the We Have Faith – Act Now for Climate Justice campaign, led by African faith leaders, with support from their constituencies and many non-government organisations.
The rally will take place on November 27 - the day before world leaders start the COP17 climate talks in Durban. The “We Have Faith” campaigners, including the activists on the caravan, are demanding that world governments at the talks in Durban reach a just, ambitious and legally-binding treaty to curb climate change.
Eight South African activists, from YMCA branches in Cape Town, Durban, Soweto, will fly to Nairobi on November 30 for the start of the caravan. The travellers aim to collect We Have Faith petitions and raise overwhelming support for the rally, on their journey.
They will also host several free music concerts on the way, including in Nairobi and Soweto, to highlight the danger of climate change and the need for world leaders to take action.
Ayanda Mabanga, who lives in Phoenix, Durban, and works at the Student YMCA in Glenwood, says: “Youth care about things like music, more than about serious issues like climate change – but they would care, if they really understood how important it is. This campaign is going to be fun. We will be using music to get young people really interested. And we really need to get this message out there.”
South African rap star Hip Hop Pantsula (HHP) is among the artists who will perform at the Durban rally in Durban, at which Archbishop Tutu will hand over tens of thousands of campaign petitions. Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, the chair of COP17 and South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, has confirmed she will receive the petitions, and Christiana Figueres, executive director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, has confirmed her attendance.
For more information about the “We Have Faith” campaign, visit www.havefaithactnow.org, Facebook (the “Have Faith – Act Now” community) and Twitter (“COP17ActNow). Watch the YouTube video of Archbishop Tutu’s call to world leaders after signing the petition on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmqoltsY5yU.
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