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The active engagement of the media in building awareness on climate change, and bridging knowledge gaps in the Niger Delta on global initiatives and activities, remains a veritable tool for achieving a cleaner and healthier earth
So said the executive director of Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, Emem Okon, as she led a Kebetkache/Oxfam organized strategy meeting with Niger Delta-based media organizations in Port Harcourt on Monday.
The meeting, which brought together print and broadcast journalists from Rivers and Akwa Ibom states led to the formation of a media coalition, ‘Niger Delta Journalists for Environmental Justice,’ with Constance Meju as its chairperson, Pius Dukor (vice chairman) and Emmanuel Atteh (secretary).
Explaining the need for the strategy meeting, Emem Okon said, ‘If we look at climate change manifestations in the Niger Delta, it is mainly people in the rural communities, particularly the women that are impacted.
“We are looking at situations where oil extraction activities have resulted in the emission of Green House gases that have caused global warming, and are resulting in climate change.”
Climate change, she said, is affecting food security and causing crisis, such as the herders/farmers crisis, experienced even in the Niger Delta, adding that “these challenges, at the community level, are not really out there (in public domain) because the community women that are directly impacted do not have access to the media.”
She said Kebetkache therefore seeks to establish a partnership with the media and extend the relationship to include community women, so as to give them access to the media, adding that such relationship will also ensure that communities “are better able to formulate their own narratives.”
Noting the disconnect between the grassroots and governments at the various levels, with regards to climate change initiatives and activities, Okon expressed faith that Kebetkache’s partnership with the media will amplify advocacy, create awareness amongst community people on the implications of climate change and on how to mitigate its dangers.
She called on members of the new Niger Delta Journalists for Environmental Justice to “pay particular attention to the experiences of community women, especially on the issues of food security, water crisis and the need to ensure that the Gender and Climate Action Plan is implemented in communities in the Niger Delta.
Constance Meju, chairperson of the media coalition thanked Kebetkache for committing to partner with the Niger Delta Journalists for Environmental Justice, while declaring the media group’s commitment to a better, safer, cleaner and richer Niger Delta.
