The Green Education Hub celebrated its second Green Education Day on Friday, 22nd July 2022 at the Kenya Methodist University (KeMU) main campus.
‘It is a God given responsibility to care for the environment’
The Green Education Hub plays a crucial role in enhancing students’ role in co-creating knowledge and practicing values in climate justice, mitigation and adaptation. The Hub’s Green Education Days provide an opportunity to students in universities in Kenya to showcase their climate actions and raise awareness of climate change.
The Second Green Education Day gave KeMU students a platform to demonstrate their efforts in climate action, and share with their peers from other universities. Among those who made the day a success are KeMU ClimateU Participatory Action Research Team members, students from three universities, KeMU university management and faculty, and non-governmental organizations engaged in climate change action.
Dr. John Muchiri, KeMU ClimateU research coordinator gave welcoming remarks in which he highlighted the project activities undertaken so far. Being a religious based institution, participants were exposed to the religious perspective of environmental conservation by the University Chaplain, Rev. Karani Patrick. The Chaplain asked the participants to uphold religious responsibility in caring and protecting the environment adding that ‘it is a God given responsibility to care for the environment. This statement did not go unchallenged as one participant wondered ‘Why bother with the environment yet the world is coming to an end anyway?’
The event was graced by presentations from some student clubs and nongovernmental organizations including the KeMU environmental club, Kenyatta University Art Therapy and UNESCO clubs, and We Don’t Have Time-Kenya Chapter.
The second Green Education Day event closed with a tree planting exercise where several indigenous tree species were planted within the campus among them the Vitex keniensis, and Olea welwitschii species. The exercise was led by the University Vice Chancellor, Prof. David Gichoya.
KeMU is one of the partner universities in the Transforming Universities for Changing Climate (ClimateU) project in Kenya. Others are Kisii and Kenyatta Universities.