Mabadiliko ni sasa (Change is now): Co-designing a science-based climate peer-to-peer training for Kenya (ChangeIsNow)

Awareness of the climate crises is constantly growing and so is pressure on the younger generation to act. While the younger generation have a high willingness to act, young people are often not very well informed about the scientific facts behind the climate crises and even less aware of what actions they can feasibly take to make a change. This often leads to overly high self- and externally imposed pressure on young people, which in turn causes concerning levels of climate anxiety and even depression. We aim to develop a climate peer-to-peer training, informed by experiences from the makingAchange climate peer training project developed for Austrian students and successful educational training models from KeAWARD in Kenya. Our goal is to empower young people in Kenya to build their self- and collective efficacy while increasing their individual resilience amid the climate crises. 

Transformative learning is needed to change unsustainable values, attitudes, habits, and behaviours, which are often learned and cemented at a young age (Anne et al., 2020). Applicable methods for transformative learning based on solid theoretical foundations that focus on alternative forms of knowledge (i.e., procedures, effectiveness, and social knowledge) that go beyond information-intensive ecological/technological knowledge provision (Frisk and Larson, 2011) need to be established. This comprises the creation of novel spaces for critical thinking, reflexivity, and experimentation across society.

The high-level goals for this project are to (1) raise awareness of the complexities of the grand global challenges of the 21^st century among young Kenyan students, (2) stimulate the translation of their willingness to act into real transformative actions that make a difference, (3) enable them to shape their own sustainable living spaces in collaboration with other societal actors, while also (4) exploring, identifying, and addressing their anxieties in the context of the climate crises and beyond.

The project aims to:

• develop a handbook for climate peer-to-peer training;
• offer peer-to-peer training to 100 students from 15 school in Kenya in the school year 2024-2025;
• develop a network of about 10 trainers for climate peer-to-peer trainings.

During the lifeline of the project, we intend to co-develop and co-produce the following outputs with our stakeholders:

• A handbook/guidelines for a climate peer training project for Kenya and beyond;
• A report on empirical insights from testing the climate peer training in Kenya;
• A community of practice for climate peer trainings in Kenya that will continue the implementation and further development of the peer-to-peer training in Kenya.

This project is supported by Africa-UniNet, financed by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF) and implemented by OeAD.