The social media comment that sparked conservation movement

The social media comment that sparked conservation movement

Kenya’s Unelker Maoga has emerged first runners up in the 2018 World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Youth award.

In a colourful award ceremony that took place in Livingstone, Zambia during WWF’s Global Conservation Forum, the 23-year-old proprietor of a community-based project- Konservation scooped the award for outstanding activities geared towards protecting the planet and advancing the conservation agenda.

According to Maoga, the conservation movement was born out of a seven worded comment on a climate change blog post she authored.

In 2016, a comment by a reader: ‘What are you doing for the community?’ after an article she wrote on how climate change was affecting her community was published, prompted her to action.

The then 20-year-old, second year university student, wrote a proposal and received a project grant for two years from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Kenya Community Development Foundation.

Maoga then channeled the money to a community-based project on Climate Change Awareness and Green Technologies in Nyamira County, Kenya.

The community-based organization she founded works with local women entrepreneurs and women owned kiosks to distribute solar lamps to homes that lack access to electricity, and also raises awareness about climate change with volunteers from the African Youth Initiative on Climate change (AYICC).

So far the project has trained over 1,500 students on climate change mitigation and adaptation, and also impacted 150 homes, that now have access to clean and affordable energy.

“It is more than a career path, its passion…for me, it’s what I love,”said Maoga.

“ The future aspiration of Konservation is to start a clean energy movement that will span across Africa. So if young people are willing to come on board and start a clean energy movement they should get up and do what they can for their communities and villages.” She added.

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