Championing Climate Justice

so much. Good morning everyone. It's such an honor to be here in front of you today to moderate a panel on climate justice. I am very excited because this topic is very dear to me and I hope that by the end of this conversation it will also be very dear to all of you. I welcome also our dear panelists onto the stage. Welcome dear Rya. A round of applause for Rya, please. Mr. Omar El Maui. And lastly, a round of applause for Jane. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's such a pleasure because today's conversation is deeply rooted in the aspect of communities and why communities frontline particularly also women and indigenous are so crucial to this conversation. And so I'd like to first start by asking the first question which I hope will be able to set this conversation. Uh starting with Rya. You know you have been doing a lot of work with the save lu and justice is embedded in all the aspects of your work. Can you please tell us about what you do as well as why is justice so crucial in all the work that you engage in? — So thank you very much for that question. My name's uh Rya Famo Ahmed and uh I'm a board member of SE Lamb and also the executive director of Lamb Women Alliance based in Lamb and what we mainly do there is uh advocate for environmental justice and uh I've been an environmental stroke gender uh defender for almost 20 years now defending my paradise that is Lamu. So, uh we live in Lamu and Lamu is a world historical site. There are things that we've been preserving for century and very dear to us. So uh the serenity of Lamu, the pristine of Lamu, the people who are living in Lamu, the food that we eat, our transport system is very unique because Lammo, we don't have cars, we use narrow street to walk to the market, to the school and uh yeah that is what we do there until uh 2012 when our government earmarked at Lamu to implement the coal power plant project. And as environmental defenders, we realized that our government wanted to implement this project at the heart of Lammo, which is the sea, because they were telling us they are going to dump all the harmful waste material from the coal power plant project into the sea. and 80% of Lamu people that is the community that are living there depend on the uh fishing industry. So we as Islam people strongly opposed this project and there are several strategies that we used which we are going to also talk at a later uh space on how we managed to nullify the license that was given by the government because uh so that they can implement this project. It's so inspiring. And what about you, Omar? Can you please tell us more about your coalition building work and how you weave justice into your everyday practices? — Thank you. Um, this could be a sign, right? It's never happened for the past two and a half days, so maybe something nice is happening here. Um, or maybe something bad. Uh but on that note um you know yesterday when we were dancing and drinking and doing everything under the sun I was part of me was worried that maybe a few of us won't be able to wake up this morning but that's fine. Um like Rya uh I call her Madame Rya because uh she is a mentor and she is someone that I respect deeply uh in terms of the work that they've done around the Lamu call plant and also me uh doing whatever was little to support that. Uh and every other lady who's seated here uh are people that I really respect. So I hope you can really pay attention. You can not pay attention to me but pay attention to them. Uh whatever they have to say I'm telling you it's important. Um, for me, uh, my name is Omar El Maui, as you've already been told, and I like to, um, introduce myself as someone who, uh, represents and works for the people

of Africa. Um, and I do that through a special purpose vehicle. It's called the Africa Movement of Movements. I don't have time to tell you what it's all about. So find me later to tell you what it is. But it's just a place that all of us can come as long as what you want to do is to improve lives of people in this continent. Now when it comes to my story of injustice, I think one of the earliest memories that I have uh would have to go decades back. I think I was just 10 years old at that point. Uh when I had a very bad and tragic road accident. Um and in the process of trying to get justice to get the perpetrator to be responsible, I saw firsthand, you know, you can imagine a 10-year-old handsome Omar, little Omar, life has now happened and somehow things, you know, the sun and everything. Um, imagine me looking at my parents, moving and and going to the courts, going to the lawyer and seeing um firsthand how a lawyer that was supposed to represent the interest of their client somehow was representing other interests. And it was my first point that I can remember. There might be others, but that's the one that comes as far as injustice is concerned. It's partly a big reason why I decided to do law. Uh I don't say this a lot but I'm an advocate of the High Court of Kenya. Uh and I practice uh only to make lives of the oppressors as hard as possible. So I don't practice for money or other things. It's just to make uh their lives miserable. Um thank you. Um but moving away from my personal life, I think professionally I also come and I'm honored to come uh from the Lamu community as well. Um my paternal side is from Lamu. Um and I could see here a community uh that was forgotten, marginalized, uh taken advantage of for over 50 decades, 50 years imagine since independence. This is — yes — now 62 but at that point around 50 years um you having uh a community that don't have even a single kilometer of tamach road uh a community that don't have enough schools hospitals and whatever it takes uh a lot of problems in terms of insecurity and many imagine all the bad things under the sun they were happening within this community and then all of a sudden uh because someone has realized that there are resources that need to be extracted from these communities. Then all of a sudden they come to them and tell them you know they come to you in the name of development that we are going to exploit these resources. help you. Uh we saw it with the Lamu coal plant which Madame Ry has already mentioned. Uh we saw it with the Lamu port which is supposed to be the biggest port in Africa if it's going to be constructed where fishermen were continuously harassed and not being allowed to even make sure that they uh secure their livelihood and even at least at the very minimal being given compensation and the only way that this was done was through pushing and fighting in courts uh you know spending a lot of money that we don't have to make sure that these people get justice. So those are some of the injustices that I've seen. Uh and partly uh why uh I have been involved in this. Uh allow me to just end by saying that at the bottom of all of this, you know, it's easier to be hopeless. It's easier to despair. Uh the best analogy I can think about is when you are at sea even if you are a seasoned swimmer uh and your boat has capsized and you can't see it's all sea it's all water you can't see any land near you it's very easy for you to give up because you know even if you swim as much as you would their chances of getting to the next shore are not necessarily guaranteed but once you start seeing you know seagulls you know flying across uh the air or uh you see you know land at the distance shore in the horizon your energies are being re-energized in many way and therefore I'm really hoping that despite all of this despair despite all of these wrongdoings that are being driven and happening to the frontline communities where most of these resources are are found it's important for us to know that justice can be achieved because at the very end giving up is what the oppressors want to see and they are hoping that they're going to achieve. Thank you. — Thank you so much. Indeed. Yeah. And the great work also that you do to oppress the oppressors.

We need more of that. Definitely. Jane Samburu Women's Trust and the Indigenous Women's Council. Please tell us more about what you do and how that interconnects with justice. — Hello Nairobi. Uh Nairobi is a Masai name which means cold water and for me being an indigenous woman uh I want to recognize uh our ancestors and also privileges to sit in this land which belong to the Masai. Unfortunately it's not the Masai land as we speak but the name speak for us. My name is Jane Muas. I am an indigenous woman from Zambu community and I come from Isol County. As an indigenous woman or child, I grew up seeing everyday environment and every evening under the stars. My mother, my father could tell me stories and folktales when you look up to the sky because mostly the pastoral is manatas are open with our small hearts. So we could assemble around the fire and we were told which means those are buildings our resilience. a young children, we were taught the importance of preserving the landscape, the trees and whatever which was surrounding us including the livestock. And that is the first knowledge and schools that I got as a pastoral child. And I was told I know most of you are African, you know the AA tree or you can Google. I was told first of all never to cut a tree for us. When you cut a tree, we have to go and do a mocking ceremony and please our ancestors because we don't cut tree. We just cut branches. That tree is used to bury me when I die because it has a shed and that shed it protect me from the hot environment and the sun. Two is the same tree that it give me berries. Sometimes when you go to look after livestock when you are children when you are hungry because you just get one meal a day you just go and get berries in the forest. Number three uh it helps to feed our livestock the leaves. So that tree to me it means a lot coming back around issues on justice. To me, justice is recognizing indigenous knowledge and our system which mostly it has been eroded by the colonial system and the modern technology. When you talk about the work I do around issues on advocacy and climate justice within uh the indigenous communities uh we've started uh an indigenous women aboretum which called Naramat in my native name means to preserve to protect the environment and the aboretum is run by women the community gave us 10 acres of land for the last 3 years we were able to plant 2,000 you wouldn't believe plant of medicinal value in a very tiny village called Kipsing where I was born from isol kilometers. My sisters know she come from there and these plants of medicinal value when we were looking around what to plant we could not even get the exact plant of medicinal value from the Kenya forest. But what we did is we engage the elders who are very niche with knowledge. When it rains, we told them to go to the to the hills or to the rocky area or along the river bench to collect the seeds. That's how we manage to get those existing plant. Why do we do that? We do it one to pass the knowledge to our children who could not have to get the knowledge to sit under the fire and the tree because of modernization. Two is to retain our rich uh system is three it is it is a safe place where it's a center for women leadership which it's also built the voices of indigenous women when you talk about naturebased solution in the same landscape we were able to get donation of 20 beehives which I'm happy to say in the last two months we were able to harvest 100 kilos of natural honey and almost like 50 unprocessed honey. To me, it is so dear to local women because that one it give them power to own resources. not just to you know and also to reduce gender based violence but again to part way indigenous knowledge is very key and recognizing it it's very important because the science and the colonial system say we indigenous people are the ones who are destroying the environment. No, we are the first one to face the reality and harsh realities of climate change. But when talk about

conversation inclusion, we've been excluded. But we at least who are able to contribute to the impact of climate change. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you all. The inputs that you have given really show us that even when we go back to the communities, the elders are usually sharing that they have been climate justice advocates before that word even existed. What the justice conversation is trying to bring on board is to link the traditional wisdom that we've always had and to really challenge the industrial systems that we have today that are trying to diminish the value that we have. And so Rya, as you work in the communities, you see the front lines who are most impacted and unduly impacted for that matter by climate change and climate injustices. What are you doing to address these inequities? — Okay, thank you very much. Uh as Lammo people uh I think uh we are very lucky that uh we stopped a project that would have uh bring a lot of destruction to our environment that was very dear to us as Lamu people. We've also experienced a lot of climate impact as any other part of Lamu floods. Yes, we've experienced prolonged droughts and because we live nearby the sea, we've seen uh islands submerging and also rising of the sea level. So when uh the government earmarked Lamu to implement the coal power plant project we thought as lamu people that if we allow this then all of our people will be gone. So what we do at the grassroot level uh we have advocacy mechanism whereby we engage all the people and talk about the relationship between nature and women. nature and people. And mind you in Lamu women are not uh h farmers or fisher folk but we mainly depend on the income of our husband and our fathers who do farming and fisher folk. So because of that there's a very close relationship between women and the nature. We thought that we we needed to protect lamb that is our environment and our nature. So that harmful uh project cannot be done in our areas. And that is why we started to explore three strategies when we were doing the coal power plant cases. And one of them doing community advocacy, going to the grassroot and talking with the people one onone, doing workshop, seminars, focus group discussion and sharing information about why people should be involved in climate issues. And uh the second strategy that we used was uh media advocacy. We decided that we wanted to amplify our voices. We wanted people to come and help us so that we can safeguard Lamb. So we reached out to many friends and we established a network of organization that are working in environment spaces and we formed decolonized movement and my brother here Omar was the first coordinator of that movement and he was based in Nairobi and collectively brought about all the environmental organization so that they can amplify our voices. is to stop the government to tell the government to stop this very harmful uh project. And the last one was about litigation process. And many thanks to the lawyers to the expert that came on board when we were doing this coal power plant case because we started this case in 2015 and until now it is ongoing and 30th of September it will be the judgment the final judgment of this case even though after 3 years the license that was issued because of all these advocacies that we've been doing. People came on board and really helped us. The license was nullified but the government appealed against that. So we are hoping

that all of you will pray for Lamu people so that this project would not be done in Lamu and 30th of September this year will be the final judgment and we are hoping that it will stop forever. Thank you very much. — Thank you. It's important to show solidarity as well. Looking forward to the 30th of September. There are so many ways to get involved both online and offline to be able to show solidarity with the people of Lamu because that what is impacting the people in Lamu affects us all. And Omar, back to you. um when you are engaging with movements of movements across Africa, how do you engage or uh challenge the inequalities that the different front lines are facing? — Yeah, and it's a good question. But before I begin, I wanted to really butress the importance of us being involved in the Lamu coal plant case. If anything, it's not just about environment and climate. uh but all of us especially those who are based in the country uh expect that you're going to be paying more as electricity bills because it's going to be a very expensive uh project and therefore it's going to get to you as well economically at least if not from the environment perspective. So please uh make a point of being involved if not just because it's the right thing to do but at least because it's going to affect your pockets. Now on the question of the frontline communities, it's very unfortunate that the uh dominant narratives uh seems to portray frontline communities as people who are uneducated, illiterate. They don't know what's right from left. Uh and therefore someone has to come in and make that decision on their behalf. Um, and while that's happening, the truth of the matter is that if you look at all of these resources, you know, where they want to do the extraction of oil, mining, most if not all of these resources are domesticated and based in places that are occupied by frontline communities. So I struggle to understand how will these people who are for lack of a better word don't know what's right for them still have all these riches that everyone seems to want to go and take advantage of now I and definitely Rya because we're coming from Lamu we have seen you know how the decisions that have been made uh that have been very impactful especially when it comes to the climate aspect to communities in Lamu with the sea rises that Ry has already told you. Uh it's a big problem because Lammo is an archipelago island which means there are different islands that are around the sea. Uh and they are one of the areas that stand to be significantly affected if we don't resolve the climate crisis as soon as possible. A lot of those islands are going to be uh to be lost. Now you know I and and I'm laughing but this is not funny. You know, I have once witnessed with my own eyes attending a meeting uh where a senior government person just imagine a very senior person and it can go all the way to the top ranks of the government that you can think about and this is someone who's asked a question uh there've been prolonged droughts and pastoralists have lost livestock. So he comes and says and very proudly so that the way that they've came in to resolve that problem is that they went to some of these pastoralists who had livestocks that were about to die and they bought those livestock pennies to the dollars or pennies to the Kenya shillings if you want me to use the appropriate example here in Kenya and then they went and sold those livestock somewhere else where there's no drought and this is someone who believes this is a climate solution that he has done while not understanding the decisions that they've been making, the wrong things that they've been doing that have driven these people to this point where now they're being taken advantage of. They don't understand that it's not just about money. This is a way of livelihood. This is something that these people have been practicing since time immemorial, since biblical times. They don't understand all of that for all they understand that this is an opportunity that it came. We bought the livestock. We went somewhere else and sold them. we made money and we've helped the community and and that's really uh really wrong. Uh if I could mention and one of the things that give me sleepless nights after all of these impacts that are befalling these people one of the biggest solution that's being sold to us is carbon markets and normally for us we call them the pollution permits. So what's happening is whatever land that is left of communities that is you know fatile and where they're getting their livelihoods now they're coming for that and taking it uh and now they're

actually making sure that these people because they're not taking carbon markets you know from where you having the state house or the parliament or places that are important and rich people they only go to the destitute and people who are very poor and you know when you don't know what you're going to eat today, a shilling or 10 shillings, someone will give it to you and you will sell your hand, leg and whatever else just to be able to eat today so that we can see tomorrow. And therefore, they even losing whatever little uh is being left uh for themselves. But importantly, we really need to understand that the frontline communities are not ignorant. uh and it's important for us when you talk about knowledge you know even scientists when they're thinking about ways to resolve the climate crisis I think it's really pertinent that they take into consideration indigenous knowledge I have seen in with my own eyes and my own experience people with indigenous knowledge who can tell me more about the land and the sea than all the PhDs you can imagine under the sun these are people who've lived the realities they know what has to be done so that these resources can be there for the near future and it is the PhDs that have actually caused most of the problem that we have today. So I think if anything it's really important that we stop ignoring the aspect around indigenous knowledge. Uh I think we need to define what illiteracy is because for me illiteracy is not about uh going to school. It's not about a secular education. It's not about PhDs. It's about knowing right from wrong. And if anything, it is those people who are perpetrating all these injustices that are the illiterate ones. — Thank you. — And Jay, I'm expecting you'll build up on the indigenous knowledge aspect. How is that being applied in your communities? How are you addressing inequities particularly using indigenous knowledge? — Uh indigenous people experience climate change. It's immediate. It's threatening and it is personal to us because it is daytoday activity and these are really reality to the community I come from. Our rich knowledge is key but where is it written? Where do people or young people who are mostly seated in this room can go and tap? Nowhere apart from when you go you get my old mom you can interview her because she has lived in that land for close to 100 years. She can able to pickpoint even the season the pattern season when it used to be severe drought you know she can able to tell you apart from those people who have privilege to go to school because some of us the community I come from we don't have privilege to go to school you struggle to go to school that's not a privilege being a Kenyan and the community I come from but that knowledge it's only the people who call themselves professors or those who are doing masters they go and harvest that knowledge they don't even recognize where does that rich knowledge come from and being an indigenous woman when you talk about the aboretum. This is why uh we are investing heavily by documenting our rich heritage, our indigenous knowledge, our food system, our pattern and in the next 5 years or so we hope to partners with universities and our hope is to give those ruler women elders with rich knowledge of plant of medicinal value for century a good example is myself I'm 40 I was not given the small what is it called in Kenya — I don't have that mark maybe I'm not a Kenyan what is it called — vaccination — I never got any vaccination because I was not born to any hospital I was just born in a manata I was actually given an injection I was meant to understand his tetanas when I was finishing class 8 so you can imagine those privileges but I believe that when I was young I was taking milk of a cow goat because they have a lot of you a lot of things that it give me a lot of um vitamins as a young child and that's why I could not get a lot of hor flu that's what we call in English but before I finish I had a privilege to spend in this hotel it's called moving peak forget about the language I pronounce well in saburu language not in English and when I was taking a bath uh inside those who have a privilege to spend here in those small tubs that you get they have the the cream uh the the washing something their bodies I could read a name called Nabulu women group and I'm happy that I'm associated with that name and I'm happy to say that the alloy you

are using it's come from the village I was born that's uh that resin you when you that's I think even when you go to the toilet that resin it come from the village we come from. But my only worry is do those women which written in those names do they have the benefits in whatever that they are producing? I don't know but it's something that we need to inrogate but indigenous people have all the solution when it's come to climate change but nobody is giving them an opportunity. Some of these spaces how many of them who can access it is who is who. How many of them can he be invited to come to talk here? No, because one we are excluded because of the language they cannot speak the good language like even Swahili majority of them can talk in their own native language. So let's also think when you also planning develop policy how do we also embed indigenous knowledge within modern technology this one it helps you and me making sure our young generation can also pursue other generation. Thank you. — Fantastic Jade. I mean yes when it comes to learning there is one a challenge that when we leave these rooms to go back to our communities and make sure that there is that connection and that knowledge being passed down but also a challenge to all the people present here and all the communicators present in particular. How can we be able to now start capturing indigenous knowledge and making that more public and more accessible? Indeed. And speaking of lessons, Rya, you have been working with the Save Lamu Alliance and also the Lamu Women's uh work. And when it comes to lessons that you have learned from working with these coalitions, what are some of the key takeaways that anyone here could be able to benefit from? Uh one of the thing that I have learned is uh our voices are our power because uh as I told you historically Lamu County has been marginalized for over 50 years. As we are speaking right now, we have areas in lamb whereby when a woman is in labor, she has to walk 7 kilometers so that she can uh meet a nearest health center so that she can give birth. So uh because of the historical marginalization we uh lamu community have really suffered because of that. And when we were doing the two cases that is the labset case and the coal power plant project. uh the Lamu people themselves were very afraid because we were petitioning the government and also mind you in LMU the population is very small we are only 120 by population 120,000 by population so a lot of people uh were scared that uh if you are uh petitioning the government what will happen to your lives as frontline defenders. But we realized the fact that we came together even though we were a small community and the the assistance that we got from all of you here regionally, internationally, all the experts that came in board to help Lammo people, we got victory in court and almost all of us rather than fearing for our lives, We were also scared that we would not get justice in courts because everybody know what happens in our courts. But with lapset project when we petition the government that they need to uh produce before implementing the project because they had displaced the indigenous people from their ancestral land. We told the government that you need to give compensation to the farmers and because they were building 32 small ports, it means they will be dredging our sea which is very holy to us and most of the fisher folk in lamb were using the old traditional fishing uh uh activities up to now. So we wanted even the fisher folk to be given compensation and uh the court case

went up to 6 years and we got victory to our surprise. Then we realized that if you come together amazing things would happen because we petitioned Thank you. We petitioned the government because of the lapset project and we had uh people uh at least right now lamu people would get information on what is happening with the lapset project. So there was the aspect of public participation that was uphold and then farmers were given compensation and very good money because most of the people who own land in Lamu do not have title deeds. So they were given compensation on acreage without title deeds at 1. 5 million per acre. So that was one of the success of the power of voices and the fisher folk. The fisher folk was given compensation. We also got uh scholarships because not all the people in Lamu are fisher fork and farmers. We were also looking into other people that are living in Lamu. And at that time during Kbaki era uh Kbaki's tenure the late Kbaki who was the president there said that uh the government should assign a thousand slots for lamu uh children to go and study on lapset uh issues. So uh voice we realized that our voices are very strong and even with the coal power plant project that is something that really stood up because the project would cost the government 210 billion shillings and the companies that were to implement that project were from very two powerful business people in Kenya. One of them is the late Chris Kiroi who was uh for the Chris Investment and the second company was Gulf Energy which is still owned by Shahal. I think many people in the house know who Shahal is. So people were scaring us and telling us that the government will uh abduct you. they will do uh bad things because they cannot allow you to stop this very big investment and because of the power of people solidarity and support we still petition the government. Actually I remember this one day. We traveled from Lamu to the African Development Bank headquarters in K Devo 16 hours from Nairobi to meet the funders who were supposed to give these two companies the money to implement this project. And we cried in front of them that we want development Islam people but not at the expense of poor people. Why do you want to kill us? displace put pollution to our hearts that is very dear to us which is the sea like I told you and most of the people there in Ivory Coast did give us an ear. they listened to us and General Electric pulled out of the support that they were supposed to give him. So one thing that I know is uh our voices are the power and we really need to bank on our voices. Thank you very much. Thank you. And Omar, [snorts] being part of these campaigns, decolonize, stop ecop, and now working on carbon markets. Omar, what exactly have you been doing to make sure that frontline voices are not just being used or tokenized, but actually being weaved into the campaign strategies. — Thank you, Ashley. And I'm not working on carbon markets. I'm working against carbon markets. — Against um you know and and part of me struggles you know when I'm speaking when I'm hearing other people speaking I can understand and and see the good things when I'm speaking I don't necessarily uh hear what I'm saying and sometimes I'm in a limbo when I hear people clapping when I'm speaking I'm worried because it could mean one of two things either I've bored you to death and you want me to move on um or whatever I've said is really nice so I I'll give you the benefit of doubt and hope it's the it's the latter.

[snorts] Um now there's one lady that during the Jenz mand there's a famous quote uh where she said when we lose our fear they lose their power. I'm sure all of you know her um and I think the Lamu call plant and the example of Lamu uh is the perfect example. You know, when you're thinking of a success story where someone who is the current modernday David standing up on the modern day golas and this is a golas who is on steroids, not the one that you've seen in the Bible and still being able to defeat them and causing all of this trouble to this day. It shows you that it's not just a cause that cannot be won, but it actually can. It has been shown that it can. and don't accept or trust anyone who tells you otherwise. Now on ECOP, the East African Kudel pipeline, unfortunately, we don't have much time to tell you about it. I hope at some point those who don't know about it can Google and list and and read more. Specifically, look at the stop ecop. org website. It will tell you more about the campaign. But in my let me sound a little bit literate now. in my marriage or many uh struggles that I've been involved. Um I really think the campaign to fight against the ECOP project is one of the best memories I have. Apologies. I don't mean the colonize wasn't nice. It still was. But this is one and I will tell you why. The reason for me is because at the first time it allowed me my mind and everything that was programmed in me to know that it's possible to move beyond borders. the country that I call home and everyone tells me only to think about this country at the expense of everyone else and start looking and building and being part of a community that is hundreds if not thousands of kilometers away from where I'm living and taking up their cause as if it is mine. It was an opportunity for me to visit, talk, being part of communities and seeing firsthand how some of these things are affecting them. And therefore I'm hoping also for all of us who are here let's not be those people who are thinking just at your backyard you know whatever is not happening around your house around your family it's not important it's like what's happening with public resources you know like if public systems don't work you find private solutions in terms of how to solving them. So if you live in an insecure area instead of asking the security guys to provide security you get a guard or fence. uh if you have bad education then you take your child to a private uh school among different other uh examples. So how we've made sure that the community and the frontline communities were at the forefront of the stop EOP campaign and trying to resist this behemoth very bad project. Imagine 1,400 plus kilometers of a pipeline that is heated starting from the western part of Uganda going all the way to Tanga in Tanzania. And the mere reason why they're building that pipeline is not because these people around the area can get fuel. I have all the problems with fossil fuel, but they're doing it because it's colonial. it's new colonial just to make sure that it gets to the nearest tanker ship and go elsewhere to the rest of the world while impacting people impacting nature and impacting the climate. So for me how I made sure that they were involved. One, I tried as much as possible whenever I could cross into these two countries and they allow me and stop my passport, I made sure that I met with these community frontline communities and wherever it was hard to do that, we worked with trusted uh frontline community and other organizations within these areas to make sure that we speak and have conversations with them to know what's really important for us to do. And this is really important because sometimes you can come to a cause with the best of intentions but actually what you are doing is more harm because you don't understand what's important for these communities. They don't feel part and the worst that can happen is that these communities now don't necessarily look themselves as part of whatever struggle you are trying to push. They don't feel the ownership because they were not involved in the co-creation uh of the same. So that has really been important. And I just want to finish by saying that it's allowed me now I spend most of my time thinking beyond where I'm placed. I think more around the continent now I think about what's important. What are the struggle that I want to push and I'm a brother and a friend to anyone who wants to be part of this and I unapologetically and boldly mention that first we are fighting and working and struggling for the people of this continent before anyone else. Thank you. — Thank you

— Jane. And as Rya mentioned that women are so integral in this fight, how is it that we can be able to include women and indigenous people particularly when it comes to climate diplomacy and climate decision-m? Uh first of all let me begin by saying we indigenous community including women who are mostly triple marginalized in all conversation — are impacted negatively. — So we want to say we want genuine conversation. We want respect when you talk about indigenous knowledge involvement and when you want to document about our rich knowledge. How do we do that? Uh as we have a platform called an indigenous women council. A council that is within Kenya and East Africa which we bring all uh pastoralist hunter gatherer fisher folks women living with a disability young women who are youth adolences girls bringing in the same platform. One is to influence policy and to influence those who we call themselves who is who those who have power and the power is resources. — Uh to show them uh first of all we exist. Secondly, we have very rich knowledge. Knowledge that is not even tapped in book. But you can Google me and I can give you that knowledge as much as it's not quantify that it's a certificate or diploma or degree or PhD. But you can Google from me and also have a platform that our collective voice. We believe in intergenerational learning. Elder women who are healers, we learn from them. Middle women like me who are also had an opportunity to go to school. So we combine knowledge and modern uh technology we can also impact on them and young women who also looking up to us. How do we also pass that knowledge to them so that when I exit in this stage, there's someone else who will take the legacy and continuing pursuing voices of indigenous women, indigenous people in certain spaces that we are not included. And lastly, the reason why we push an agenda within the women's spaces is one, we believe who has the privilege to sit in this room, who had the privilege to invite me, who has the privilege to be there. And the knowledge that everybody is talking about, traditional knowledge, the rich knowledge, how is it going to be used? Who is privileged when you talk about the rich knowledge? So these are the things that we want to disconnect. As much as we have the knowledge, we'll also be to put in the table that when you use my knowledge, I should also be privileged to give my own view. But again, how do we also bring uh other actors to learn from us? We believe that we are nature based solution because we've been protecting our land for century. We've been environmental land defenders from onset. Not using the title but from onset. I believe even my grandmother is a is an environmental human right defender. By them giving me that stories when I was very young those redu it prepare us on how to defend our land. And again in simple term land to us it means life it means everything. It means identity. So when you talk about climate change, you don't separate with natural resources like land, rivers or anything because you cannot disconnect between waters sometimes. Let me give you a good example. When it rains heavily and you hear the thunders, my mother could rush out with milk and poured and said in silent God do not wipe us. It means somebody has maybe god and the gods are hungry when there are floods. Is it last year they were all over wiping people in Madar or in Kenya in my community women could go with honey milk and beseech the rivers that yes we've done something bad to you forgive us. So you can see the connection between us. Sometimes when it is very dry women go and pray for the rivers there's rain we go and offer sacrifice in those land and you can imagine when my brother talk about carbon credit now we are being displaced with conservation ideas this land is not fatile we you know we don't live there because people are just scattered you move kilometers without seeing people so land to us means everything it means our life and when You touch about lands, you

touch our identity. So basically I'm also here to teach you when you talk about indigenous knowledge. I don't just speak very practically. So you can also Google me after here but also you can visit sambu women trust uh and also indigenous women council and also about issues on labor. You'll be able to learn a lot on naturebased solution and how we use it also to make sure that it's an agent uh agency where indigenous women can also use a platform as a safe place to pass out information and also to organize themselves. Of course, coming from patriarchy society, sometimes women do not have a chance. Let me finish finish a very uh request or even just a message to those who have resources seated here. We as indigenous people believe that when you have resources, give us resources with the dignity and trust. Don't petting things that I give you resources so that we do that. No, please give us resources with the trust and believing that we do with equal, you know, that equality. But don't look at me as if I'm very poor and I'm miserable and you want to help me. No. Thank you. — Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Jane. And Rya Omar, you know, we only have a couple of minutes left. What steps can we take [snorts] all of us here as climate justice advocates to bring justice into our work? — Okay. I think my sister here has uh almost spoken everything but uh — finished everything. — Everything exactly but uh I just want to urge everybody here that let's stand up and do something. Let's be all like the hummingbird and uh you do one thing and you your other person uh supplements what you are doing. That is one and also let's uh move on with the digital warriors. They are the people that are amplifying on all the injustices that are being done to uh community people and also it is uh it will be very good for us to safeguard the indigenous knowledge that my sister has been talking about and uh I can say proudly like in SE Lamu we have had a project of uh producing a bioultural protocol book whereby by we've tapped all the indigenous knowledge, traditions, culture that are in lamu so that at least it can also benefit our children that uh our children. Yeah. Then it is very good to also urge the our government to stop fossil fuel project as an example of lam coal power plant project. We are very proud that we stopped. I I'm very optimistic that on 30th of September this project would be stopped. But uh if the government would manage to implement this project in Lamu, it means it will be doing mining in Kitoui because they have found deposits there. So they were saying that they will put the coal power plant in Lamu and by the time they do mining they will be bringing uh the coal mine from South Africa via our port. So if we stop the coal power plant in Lamu, it means the whole of Kenya will not do coal mining project. So it will be very important for all of us to also take uh take part and telling our government to stop this uh project. And lastly, I want to tell people here, let's have hope. Let's raise our voices. We can, we will, we must. — Thank you. — Thank you very much. — So Omar, last word. — Yeah. Just quickly I really want to share with all of us that unfortunately and this is not my thought uh so that I don't plagiarize someone wise before but it's unfortunately that we live in a world uh that women are judged by their past and men by their future and we have to move beyond that uh because there's so much that women are bringing into this discourse and I honestly believe that without them we cannot get where we need to be. Now

for the purpose of if I'm going to be repetitive, you know, I met Joseph outside here this morning uh and he reminded me and told me that when you want to sound smart, you have to repeat things, you know, like when you hear someone and this is his example, say the business of business is business, you know, like you feel like oh life is life, you know, like it's something that really resonates with you. But um so that I we can go I'll just quickly mention three things that we can do. First uh I think uh it's important that if all of us if our motivation of doing this work uh of getting climate justice is because we're expecting a paycheck at the end of the month. I understand that people have to leave you have families and all of those have to be cuted for the bills and everything. But if your sole motivation is a paycheck at the end of the month, I have to tell you that we will never be able to deliver uh a climate justice and deal with the injustices that are happening because for you the first important thing is getting the salary. And I could even argue that you wouldn't want this problem to be resolved because once it's resolved, you're losing your paycheck as well. So you'll always be speaking on the side of where the your bread is buttered. Second, we really have I think individual organizations have a big role to play in the work that we are doing, but we have to move beyond organizations. Yes, let's continue doing the work as organizations, but until we learn and accept and start working together jointly in pushing what we need to push, then our our effort and and our uh our fruits become bigger and I think it's the only way that we will be able to to deliver uh the justice that we are calling for our people. And perhaps lastly uh because Ashley is looking at me like time is done. So lastly I would say that also this should not just be left. I I I struggle when I see the only people who are working on climate are climate activists or organizations that are specifically on this. We have to expand our nets. It's time that we move beyond ourselves and our circles and beyond it until we can get people like athletes you know chefs teachers engineers all these people caring about climate the way you do then we also won't be able to deliver. I will tell you and guarantee you that our oppressors they have the same purpose. They are aligned and therefore if all of us don't create and build our army to a point where we can match uh their efforts then our defeat is almost guaranteed. Thank you. — Thank you. So thank you so much Rya with save lamu. 20th September will be 30th September will be the hearing date. We will definitely show solidarity to that. engage also with the topic of coalition and the great work that they're doing opposing the banks but also building power and community resistance across different borders and also engaging and weaving in the presence of indigenous people and indigenous advocates when it comes to planning and executing climate justice actions. This has been such a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much Jane, Omar, and Rya. And thank you to you all for listening. My name is Ashley Kitisia from LA Movement. It's a pleasure to have had this time with you. Thank you so much.