Dear All,

According to the United Nations short range fertility forecast for Sub-Saharan Africa indicated that Nigeria would be third largest country in the world after India and China by 20100 with 750m people, another UN report also indicated that by 20100, 41% of global youth will come from Africa. Africa is the only continent that would double in size by 2040 i.e. from 1billion to 2billion. The Continent is the only barging continent on earth, where the land, atmosphere, businesses are all immature and all are based on like a new born baby.

The role of the youth is of critical importance for young people are the most important building blocks of any society. They are an important source of creativity, enthusiasm, and are drivers of social change. A just and an environmentally conscious society can be created only if the youth of every society are empowered with sufficient knowledge, enabling skills, and appropriate attitude and values. It is wise to enable young people to comprehend their relationship with the environment and make concerted efforts to conserve it.

RCEs are involved in promoting integration of principles, values and practices of sustainable development into teacher education programmes. Such integration requires quality teacher education that entails equipping teachers with key competences in life skills. This requires making citizenship education an integral part of ESD. During the 8th Global RCE Conference in Nairobi, participants deliberated questions on ‘who is a teacher’ and ‘how to become a teacher’ to provide useful insights into ways of improving teacher education and schooling.

More than 60 delegates from 17 acknowledged RCEs and four candidate RCEs attended the African continental discussion at the 8th Global RCE Conference in Nairobi. The discussion forum provided the delegates with an opportunity to share their achievements and challenges with a view to consolidate collaborative efforts in ESD research and capacity development. Highlights for 2013 included an increased visibility of African RCEs and improved interactions with policy makers.

The GCCA mentoring programme aims to empower you as a young climate leader, within a youth led organisation, to build and grow both your own organization/group/project, and more broadly the climate movement in your region.

Some aspects of climate change may already be irreversible. I believe that by taking positive action now, it is possible to slow the pace of climate change and reduce further global warming. Changing our lifestyle and our behaviour will help reduce the impact caused by human on the environment.
Anyone can make a difference to climate change. Below are my suggestions for a more sustainable approach to living in our environment, while focusing on climate change:-

Reduce car emissions

On behalf of the Global RCE Service Centre and RCE Delhi, we are pleased to inform you that their annual youth initiative ‘Youth Unite for Voluntary Action 2014’ (YUVA Meet 2014) will be held from 3-4 February 2014 in Delhi, India as part of Delhi Sustainable Development Summit (DSDS: http://dsds.teriin.org/2014/). YUVA Meet aims at enabling youth to voice their opinions on a variety of sustainability issues and this year’s YUVA Meet will focus on the theme of “Innovation for a Sustainable Future – Transforming Learning into Action”.