Social media is increasingly becoming a routine stopover for many young people in Uganda, which makes it the perfect platform for climate activism at very minimal costs. Statistics show that as of January, 2021 up to 3.4 million Ugandans were active on social media.

In the past few months, I drew inspiration from the facts above to take to social media to bring light to the climate emergency and other environmental issues to my internet audience.

Activities done and the objectives

1. Creation of surveys that I shared through different social media channels like WhatsApp and telegram groups, statuses in order to know the extent of environmental knowledge of the people, using the internet community as my sample space.

2. Sharing of information on how human interaction with the environment can affect it positively and negatively.

I did this through posting green facts and sharing links to legit sources of climate change knowledge in order to enrich the users with the truth of mother nature.

Results

Through surveys, I have been able to understand how little environmental information there is to the average person. As a result, I multiplied efforts in spreading awareness to the environmental issues in the communities such as poor plastic disposal. 

For instance, I carried out an online campaign against plastic disposal targeting the youth, with the hashtag, #plastic_should_be_extinct where I shared the dangers of plastic wastes to human and environmental health for 14 days on statuses and different groups and encouraged efforts for sharing of the information for wide outreach.

Through this campaign, several people in my circle and their circles, understood the disadvantages of plastic, best disposal methods and the biodegradable alternatives to it such as paper. 

Challenges: 

Indifference.

The most evident challenge I have faced is inattention in my audience. For a lot of people, climate change is just a part of science that is parallel to their daily lives and that cannot compare to other exciting topics in life. 

Therefore, some tend to ignore my posts and links. This makes calling people to genuine interest in environmental matters quite challenging, and even much harder to move them to action. 

Course in action (solution):

I am taking great pleasure in improving my communication skills especially, in effective and motivational writing, such that I engage several people more meaningfully in positive climate action.

Compliments

I am very grateful to all my mentors Joon and Hannah and to the other amazing people ( ambassadors and other users) I have met on this platform that have inspired me to be a better version of myself and fight harder for mother nature and my community.

References:

 Digital 2021: Uganda

https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2021-uganda#:~:text=There%20were%203.40%20million%20social,total%20population%20in%20January%202021.