Esnath Divasoni joins Sarah Marchildon from UN Climate Change to speak about the power of CAMFED's Agriculture Guides
In the 5th episode of the “It’s Possible” podcast series presented by Sarah Marchildon from UN Climate Change, three experts discuss the future of food. One of them, CAMFED Association member Esnath Divasoni, is a climate-smart agriculture expert, who helped to develop CAMFED’s Climate-smart Agriculture Guide program and accepted the 2019 UN Climate Action Award on behalf of the grassroots activists in our movement.
She joins Peter McGuinness, CEO of Impossible Foods, and Earlene Cruz, Founder and Executive Director of Kitchen Connection Alliance.
At the end of our three-year target period we had reached 74,000 community members with climate-smart agriculture [training], 31,000 students with financial support from the profits of farming enterprises, and 5000 young female farmers to sustainably grow their agricultural businesses. Our next target is to reach over 150,000 community members with climate-smart agriculture in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania, plus over 400,000 school children with skills for climate resilience and becoming climate champions.
We are the CAMFED Association, the fastest-growing movement of young women leaders in Africa. We've seen how the climate crisis disproportionately impacts women and pushes more girls out of school. So we know what it takes for our communities to thrive.
CAMFED Agriculture Guides are young women who have completed school with CAMFED support and who have expertise in sustainable agriculture. They draw on the knowledge they gained at secondary school – including the creativity, problem-solving and leadership skills cultivated through CAMFED’s school-based Learner Guide program – and combine it with “green economy” technical expertise.
Investing in girls’ education and women's leadership is one of the most powerful ways of tackling the climate emergency. If we want to see a drastic improvement in the health and wealth of entire nations, and in our societies’ ability to face the impact of climate change, we need to make sure that women and girls have equitable access to quality education.
My name is Esnath and I am a climate game changer in Zimbabwe. As a member of the CAMFED Association, sustainable agriculture expert and entrepreneur, I am a role model to girls and young women in my community who aspire for a brighter future as leaders in climate action. I am a passionate advocate for girls’ education and I have experienced first hand the barriers girls face in staying in school.
CAMFED received the 2019 UN Climate Action Award in the ‘Women for Results’ category for young women’s grassroots action on climate change in rural sub-Saharan Africa. Esnath Divasoni, a CAMFED Association leader and Agriculture Guide, accepted the award on behalf of all in our movement.
Our leaders are participating in several events at COP26, bringing the deep expertise, lived experience and grassroots activism of young African women to a global audience, and to the policy making table.
Join us as we discuss climate education in the classroom and the community, with equity at its heart. Climate activists Harriet Cheelo and Natasha Lwanda join climate specialists Christina Kwauk and Kartick Kumar, CAMFED Ghana's National Director Sally Ofori-Yeboah and our Executive Director for Enterprise and Climate, Catherine Boyce.
I'm Tawonga from Malawi. With CAMFED support I completed my education and studied agriculture at EARTH University. Now I am plowing back my climate-smart knowledge into my community and supporting young women farmers to increase their yields and create jobs for other young people.
I’m Naomi, a game changer in the CAMFED Association of women leaders educated with CAMFED support in Zambia. I am respected in my community and beyond for my activism on big issues like girls’ exclusion from education and climate change.
Mwanaisha was one of 14 pioneering CAMFED Association members selected to attend a tailored six-week course in Sustainable Agricultural Systems at EARTH University, and has gone on to become an Agriculture Guide, reaching more than 1,200 people across eight rural districts in Tanzania. She has also introduced new eco-friendly technologies, training more than 500 people in the use of fuel-efficient patsari stoves, and reaching more than 300 people through demonstrations of pot-in-pot refrigeration, helping rural communities to preserve food in hot weather and reduce waste.
What brings me fulfilment and happiness is helping the less privileged in society. Through my business I look forward to training many more people in mushroom production and encouraging youth in agriculture - so that they look upon it more positively. Through the training, I hope to get at least 20 young women in a year into mushroom and agricultural production. I would say to them that they need attitude and skills, but most of all perseverance. You need a spirit of persistence, never giving up.
Sydney Gurewitz Clemens $10.9
Jessy Clement $31.9
Brock Warner $5.6
Alexis Taylor $47.6
David Sipes $500
Peter Miraglia $158
Martha Campbell $5254
Michael Lewis $250
Katie Hawks £10.6
Kimberly Elam $106
Sean Simmons $5.6
Marcia Tugendhat $158
Pamela Tishman $63.4
Mary Parker £26.2
Marjorie Grayson $50
