African YMCAs celebrate Earth Hour

Earth Hour happens on the last Saturday of March each year, in over 190 countries and territories around the world. Earth Hour gives people a chance to show how much they care about our planet, by a show of global solidarity and drawing the world’s attention to the climate and nature crises. Earth Hour 2022 comes at a particularly critical time – just a few months before world leaders will make important decisions on nature at COP15 Part 2 in Kunming.

This year during Earth Hour in collaboration with WWF in Africa, African YMCAs marked with several activities led by YMCA S2C Ambassadors across the continent. Below are some of the wonderful youth-Led activities from YMCAs in Africa.

YMCA Zimbabwe

“The need for a holistic approach to addressing climate change as well as mending humanities broken relationship with nature to avert pandemics is an urgent priority. As YMCA Kadoma we took time to disseminate information to students on #EarthHour. The response and information shared was overwhelmingly great.

“As we continue to observe earth hour, our young people across Africa continue to showcase their engagements with their local communities in promotion of environmental conservation. Zimbabwe YMCA had a power space with their Y school clubs and Young people joined the campaign with solidarity messages. Additionally, they held a clean up event where they picked up litter around school as part of their actions to preserve the environment.”

Nelson Mandela Bay YMCA, South Africa

“Our youth engaging with the community we serve. In observance of Earth Hour, they cleaned up the streets as a symbol of their commitment to the planet”

Togo YMCA

“A delegation from the General Secretariat of YMCA-Togo led by Mr. Gérard Kokou ATOHOUN, with the CFER Center (Rural Entrepreneurship Training Center) team at Avetonou, led a reforestation activity, an action that is included within the framework of #EarthHour2022″

YMCA Togo also led an online campaign on ‘Ecological gestures to protect our planet Earth’

Ghana YMCA

“We hosted a Zoom Meeting to discuss “Environmental conservation & how to save our planet Earth”. #EarthHour #ShapingOurFuture #SaveThePlanetEarth”

S2C Ambassador Fransisca Ohenewa also met high school students to share with them how to get involved in #savingourplanet and #shapingourfuture. They discussed how a better way of life can help conserve the earth. It was a fruitful discussion, with a small after party.

The Gambia YMCA

“We join millions around the world for Earth Hour 2022.

In raising awareness about Earth Hour, our S2C Ambassadors engaged students from the YMCA Youth Empowerment Training School through a documentary called “Earth Emergency”.#Connect2Earth #ShapeOurFuture #TheGambiaYMCA #S2CAmbassadors

Madagascar YMCA