Alex Rose-Innes
Hilda Nakabuye may not be an entrepreneur or innovator, but in mobilising her peers to protest against climate change, she is doing more than most and her voice is now heard and recognised across the world.
Young environmental activists in Uganda, Hilda’s home country, as well as Kenya and Ghana are making their voices heard across the globe in an effort to address climate change. Hilda, who is regularly called Africa’s answer to Greta Thunberg, is paving the way for a new generation of activists. Young people who realise that there is only one Earth and calling for climate justice, bringing their countries to book to change their thinking and ensuring there is a future for the next generation.
Already in the Seventies, forward-thinking climate activists were forcing their governments to choose a green future instead of greenbacks (money.) Today, Hilda is at the forefront of taking action.
She told the global media that her grandmother thought they were cursed by the gods as continued drought led to a life of hardship for the family. The Nakabuye family lost everything as a result of these droughts and severe weather changes in Uganda. Eventually, Hilda could not continue her schooling due to lack of money and no harvest.
Climate change was a term for the future and for Hilda and her peers that future is now. Because of the hardship suffered by many on the African continent and those who still do, the young environmentally-conscious generation would not be silenced.
A local forum held by an environmental group saw Hilda doing internet research where she found Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future posts and she founded Fridays For Future Uganda. She mobilised Ugandan school learners and university students to strike for climate change. This meant missing Friday classes in solidarity with young people the world over.
Six million people across the globe are now involved in protests demanding climate change and 23-year-old Hilda had become a leading climate and environmental rights activist. She had been invited to speak at international conferences such as COP25 and the C40, calling for climate change.
As part of CARE International’s #March4Women campaign, Hilda is outspoken about the need for gender equality and racial integration in an effort to turn around the damaging effects of climate change. Especially in Africa, with its male-dominated culture, most of those displaced by climate change, are women (80%).
The United Nations (UN) said gender inequalities on the continent include problems to acquire land, the division of labour which falls mostly on the shoulders of women and the lack of female representation in environmental decision making would continue to plague Africa. But not with Hilda Nakabuye at the forefront of this drive.
Caption: The Greta Thurberg of Africa, Hilda Nakabuye from Uganda, speaking at an international conference.
