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“If we commit ourselves we can reverse climate change”

Interview with Gertrude Kabusimbi Kenyangi of Support for Women in Agriculture and Environment

18.11.2014 |




Gertrude Kabusimbi Kenyangi (right) at the UNFCCC

Gertrude Kabusimbi Kenyangi is from Uganda and works for the organisation Support for Women in Agriculture and Environment. She attended the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference Of the Parties (COP) 19 in Warsaw last year. Claire Greensfelder, senior Advisor on Climate and Energy for WECF, interviewed her on working with WECF and the lessons learned in the leadership training.

As someone who works at the local level, do you think it was worth to come to the UNFCCC COP meeting in Warsaw?
“The COP was worth the time I spent here. I felt that maybe in fact the length of time, one week, was not enough. There were so many things running parallel at the same time. I wanted to come here because I have worked on climate issues for a long time, they are my passion. I thought that if I would go to the climate conference I would get a lot of experience, make connections with like-minded people and I would go away from here more empowered. I have seen the effects of organising with people.  I have seen that we are able to adapt and sometimes even to reverse the course of undesirable situations like the climate change if we commit ourselves. I would like to come again to see how far we have moved globally from where we are now. And I would like to know if the intervention I made was actually adopted, did it have an impact? COP needs organisations such as WECF to connect them to the people. If the people are not involved then COP will remain just an exercise in tourism.”

Are there things you learned from other women in the WECF leadership training that you will apply back home?
“Yes, I have learned a lot of things here. Being a part of the WECF Leadership training has clarified several concepts that were hazy before: like the concept of mentorship and the concept of leadership. They helped define them for me. Before the training, I thought they blurred with each other, I thought they overlapped or even meant the same thing and that the two words could be used interchangeably! And, I discovered during the training that I had already been doing mentoring and leading! I also realized that mentorship is something that I can use as a tool back home. I can use it to achieve a lot more to fight climate change and poverty, and to achieve gender equality and women empowerment.”

Read the full interview here.

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