The Hangout with David Sciarretta
Conversations with interesting people.
The Hangout with David Sciarretta
#104 Climate Anxiety: A Conversation with Jennifer Uchendu
Growing up in Nigeria, climate activist and global leader Jennifer Uchendu witnessed systemic inequalities that sparked her passion for advocacy. Today, she's pioneering work at the intersection of climate action and psychological wellbeing—a connection rarely discussed in mainstream environmental conversations. While Western climate narratives often center on distant polar bears or melting ice caps, Jennifer illuminates how climate anxiety manifests uniquely in African contexts, where communities simultaneously navigate economic survival, political instability, and environmental degradation.
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Learn about Susty Vibes: https://www.google.com/url?q=https://sustyvibes.org/&sa=U&sqi=2&ved=2ahUKEwj1-IXV3JePAxUvPDQIHW3yLuoQFnoECB8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1nwPcUgAjZbuFbG0ncnrW5
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Welcome, Jennifer. Thank you so much for joining us today for this conversation.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it's such a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:I appreciate your when I asked you prior in our pre-chat about where you are in the world right now. You you know you're on the East Coast, but you mentioned that you sometimes can't quite remember where you are right. You move around so much, you travel, you have so many currents flowing in your life. Why don't you start with, if you would, telling us about your origin story, where you come from and what brings you to this present moment? That's a great question.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm Igbo and that's my primary identity, besides being a woman, and I'm from the tribe of the Igbos, based off in Nigeria, and Nigeria is in West Africa, so a lot of the times I identify with that tribe and being Black African and a young person, I would say, who's really passionate about the environmental work.
Speaker 2:But growing up as an Igbo woman or a daughter, I think there are threads of oppression that I always saw within the society I grew up with, within my internal family system. That I feel has shaped who I've become today. So now I show up in the world as a climate activist and someone who's very passionate about the intersection of mental health and well-being issues, even as activists and, you know, climate leaders. And I think that thread always came from the childhood. I grew up in just wanting to advocate for people who never felt like they had a voice or just being angry all the time about the things that were unfair in the world as I saw it as a child growing up, so that I would say has led me to this point. It's constantly looking to solve problems, problems that show up first in my own life, that I personally have to deal with, and then saying, well, if I find a solution to this or if I'm part of a group trying to solve this problem, then maybe to make the world a better place one way or the other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when people think of climate change, at first blush people think about rising sea levels. In the media they think about polar bears having an ever-shrinking environment. I know a lot of people who say I want to do a cruise to Alaska before there's nothing to see there. I haven't heard anyone before kind of stumbling into your work talk about mental health, anxiety and the intersection with climate change. So that's what really drew me to your story story. Can you expand on those ideas and then talk about how it has really been immediately present in your life and the life of young people around the world, but also in West Africa?
Speaker 2:Sure, that's a great question, and some of those examples you gave are all part of you know narratives that you know have been, you know have become dominant within the climate change. You know stories it doesn't invalidate them, but they are not like all there is to the problem, as it were. So my work with climate change and mental health, I think, came from my experience as a climate activist in Nigeria. You know organizing working with young people to. You know run nature-based projects, community projects. You know cleanup initiatives. I have constantly poured myself into doing the work that protects the environment, and somewhere along the line I felt extremely burnt out, overwhelmed and anxious as a result, and anxious in the sense that climate change is an extremely big problem. It's big to tackle. It's not just about, you know, carbon in the atmosphere, the weather changing. It's about systems changing. It's about the power and injustice and the oppression that comes as a result of it, and so for me, these realities came kind of flashing back and it just seemed like I was a drop in the ocean. And that's what you find with a lot of young people who are interested in, you know, supporting the movement or making change. You know supporting the movement or making change and that anxiety, that fear, anger, you know, and grief that I was feeling. I later came to understand that it's, you know, a concept within you know, environmental psychology and climate and mental health literature, as you know eco-anxiety, climate anxiety and the likes. But for me it was first that feeling of extreme powerlessness and overwhelm. And it wasn't just me personally the young people that I walked with also sensed it and, you know they just kept thinking what it's what we're doing, even enough, you know, can this even make the change, especially on the backdrop of the news that we hear every single day, you know, you hear headlines like less than 10 years, you know, to save the planet, or you know there's, no, there won't be life after now. So you find young people, you know, choosing not to have children. You find people making a lot of really strong decisions and big decisions as a result of the climate crisis and these realities that we're having to face. All of those are encapsulated within the climate, mental health, conceptualization.
Speaker 2:But even beyond some of these feelings I've spoken about, older people are dealing with something called solastagia, which has to do with the loss of, you know, identity and the places that they've always known, you know, seeing that change over time. I've heard, you know, older people in Nigeria talk about how the Lagos and Lagos is a major city in Nigeria the Lagos they lived in is no longer what we're having to live in and they feel very sorry for us, but also they're grieving that reality that's changing, you know, in terms of how. You know, the ecosystem in itself is changing and things are no longer the way they used to be. Fruits no longer come, you know, in particular season and things are just, you know, scrambled, as some of them say, and that's something we see coming up. That grieving, that loss of identity that comes, for example, if you have to migrate as a result of a massive flood, you know that destroys your community. Farmers are having to grieve their livelihood that they're losing.
Speaker 2:So this is beyond, you know, just talking about climate adaptation is how deeply is, you know, this impacting people on a psychological level, and not just in terms of how they cope, but how they even envision their place in the world? You know, can you have conversations with these people about being a climate activist or climate actors? It's very difficult to imagine a better world or a climate safe world when you're interfaced with this reality. So all of that reality is what I've been exploring, particularly building evidence on what this looks like in Africa, because oftentimes you don't always find the evidence and literature, because less research is done on our end of the world, and I've just been really motivated to create this opportunity to learn more about the problem, explore and experiment with solutions to really build resilience.
Speaker 2:Because, again, when you look at the injustice of the climate crisis, look at the injustice of the climate crisis, africa, despite contributing less to global warming, you know, gets to be at the brunt of it and we don't have the infrastructure to even bounce back and to build resilience. So when there is a massive climate disaster, it hits us really bad, you know, and it's difficult to kind of bounce back and to move forward after that. So a lot of my work has been looking at how people cope, how people dream, how people, you know, build resilience following a disaster. But even before that, even for the young people who live, you know, in regions in Africa that you know may face a climate disaster sooner or later, what does that look like for them and what are their perception of risks, mental health issues that could potentially come up?
Speaker 1:In response to what you were experiencing, what you saw among young people, you started an organization. Can you talk to us about that? And also, it has a catchy name, so talk to us about that. And also it has a catchy name, so talk to us about that, what the name means, susti vibes and and everything kind of surrounding that sure, actually it's a funny story because susti vibes existed way before I started the climate and mental health work.
Speaker 2:what I did was to start a project within sustie Vibes that then focused on this, and Softie Vibes you know yes, it's catchy, you know started a little less than 10 years ago and that was my entry into this work, as it were. I wanted to bring young people to be excited, you know, and relate to sustainability issues and get them on board, and we did that. You know, within the first three years we had lots and lots of young people across communities in Nigeria showing up, you know, as volunteers, working on multiple sustainability projects. But three years in that burnout and overwhelm started to, you know, kind of engulf us and we started something called the Eco Anxiety Africa Project, which is a sub project within Susti Vibes, now being, you know, set up to be an organization of its own.
Speaker 2:And what we do at TIP is lots of research on building the evidence on what this really means for us as Africans, on building the evidence on what this really means for us as Africans, and also advocacy, trying to make a case and validate that these emotions are real and valid and it's something that we feel as Africans, because there are arguments that you know this is a white person's problem, as it were. And side by side, you know, running community projects. So, whether it's intergenerational projects with our elders to build resilience, whether it's projects around, you know, having our version of a climate cafe, so talk therapy and spaces where we talk about the problems and what we feel we can do within. You know, guided climate aware kind of psychotherapy support and really looking at ways to move from this feeling of despair and hopelessness to just coming out of this space is feeling a bit more confident and courageous and hopeful and feeling that we can continue to do the work because we need that and we need that at a large, you know, scale.
Speaker 1:How do you work with young people who may very likely be focused first and foremost on economic survival? I know in the United States my daughter's in her early 20s and it's a tough time for generationally that age group of individuals to think about what a career looks like. Can they ever afford to buy a home? That's certainly consideration in California, with just skyrocketing cost of living and young people coming out of college or coming out of high school how they're going to fit in, and I often think that part of the challenge.
Speaker 1:You know, people lament the fact that, oh, the young, at least in the United States oh well, the young set doesn't vote. They don't come out to vote. Even though they're registered and they can, they don't. They're focused on other things. I think that's an oversimplification, but it's always a challenge, at least in the United States. Older voters tend to be the ones who come out and and and express their themselves at the ballot box. There's other ways to get involved in society, but how do you handle that topic in an African context, right when people I'd imagine especially younger people might say oh yeah, I can sit around and talk about this, but I have to. Just I got to pay the rent.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I got to do that. So how do you kind of blend those two, recognizing the realities that people have in their daily lives? But then also, this is something that, from a talk therapy standpoint, if you want to use that term, it's. It's important now, but it's also important. It's never going to not be important. Yeah, this is for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. So I mentioned that we have our version of of you know, these spaces and it's called Zen Cafe and what we've done and again, if I can backtrack, and what we've done and again, if I can backtrack, whenever we talk about this climate and mental health conversation in Africa, it's not in silos of the existing socioeconomic issues. I would say most of the time. That's the big thing, that's the problem. It's how does the climate crisis as thing happening side by side? How does it make existing matters worse, right, how does it make it harder to get a job? How does it make it harder to cope and to move out of the poverty line? So, within the spaces, within the projects that we run, that's really a big thing. That shows up. You know, it's people's inability to hope or see a future. So it's almost like with all of the things that we have to deal with as young Africans, there's this added layer of the climate crisis and that's what's extremely difficult. So these conversations are very much valid and there are a lot of of things that we talk about. So, within a climate cafe and I can share some resources. You know that speaks to how we design this. You know settings.
Speaker 2:Within those conversations, you would find that you know people are talking about not having jobs. Having jobs, you know, people are talking about how, you know, the quality of schools they had attended is impacting their ability to do X, y, z in their current state. So we find that these issues are interlinked. And, again, the climate crisis is not just about, you know, the environment or the weather changing. For us in Africa, what we see as the environment is the platform that you're able to thrive and survive in. And if that environment, you know, in a sense, is being impacted by the climate crisis because there's insecurity, that's, you know, being impacted right now in Nigeria as a result, there's, you know, food insecurity. You know that we're having to grapple with.
Speaker 2:And when you start to connect the dots, you know that we're having to grapple with and when you start to connect the dots, you see that this is part of a bigger problem and we have to talk about it. You know we have to talk about issues like energy transition because right now in Lagos, a memo has just gone out to say we're going to have power issues for the entire month. So you know these things come up, you know, and you know staff are saying well, how are we going to get power to work from home? You know this is going to be very difficult. So it's all. It's all part of the conversation. You don't even put them as separate things. We see, you know the climate crisis and all of the crisis, as it were, as part of this big thing that we're having to deal with, you know, side by side, all at once, and that's the unfortunate reality.
Speaker 1:And I'd also imagine that, you know, being such a massive continent with such a variety of um, both socio-economic, political, geographical differences, right in realities, I'm sure africa's got its own massive range of both sense of urgency about these issues and even caring about it all the way to, as you say, hey, I don't know if I can work from home because I'm not going to have internet, because, like, there's going to be rolling blackouts or something in the city because the power grid can't handle it. Have you experienced that in your conversations? Like, I'm sure that it varies really widely, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And something we're now trying to do with a project called Zen Guardians is we're now looking to have conversations across Africa, but kind of contextual. So in Uganda, we're doing something different, working with the young people there. In South Africa, you know, something different is happening and in Nigeria, you know it's a different conversation, all within the same framework. From my experience with Susti Vibes even, you know, in Nigeria Nigeria is a big country, you have 240 million people.
Speaker 2:Even within Nigeria, different tribes, different states, different cities, just have their peculiarities. The climate issues are different. The framings and narratives of how people understand the problem, you know, how they care, how they respond, is different. There is a faith dimension that you have to also, you know, explore oftentimes. So we've learned that there's no one size fits all in the ways that we address and talk to people. So, again, cultural sensitivity comes to play, but we don't come into the spaces like we have the solution.
Speaker 2:We're all trying to figure it out together and by the young people I'm talking, people within the community are volunteering their time, you know, through a participatory process to try and figure out what does resilience look like for us, you know, and how can we show up in the world feeling a little bit, you know, more hopeful than we were the other day.
Speaker 2:So it's definitely difficult. There are weeks, you know, just very recently, part of the middle belt in Nigeria was just attacked by headsmen and lots of people lost their life. And you know, the next day we just, you know, couldn't imagine doing our work because it just didn't make sense. And that's, you know, in that place because a lot of the young people there would not welcome any conversation because they're extremely upset. And you know we we realized that this is just the complexity and you know the difficulty of working in this space, that it's real life issues. You know it's not something you can just do on Excel and you know, share on a screen, this is actual people. You know people's lives and futures being impacted on a day to day.
Speaker 1:What has been the politicization of these conversations in the African context? The conversations around even whether to call it global warming or climate change in the United States. That's this whole hot debate, and then within that it's split left and right about both, what measures should be taken, or whether you know, should we should, should we have the green new deal, which was something that's proposed, and then on the left, the fairly far left, and then the right comes back and says, no, that'll kill industry. We need to have, you know, bring it. Or, in the case of a current administration, oh, we're going to bring back coal and that whole industry fighting back and forth.
Speaker 1:I knew in preparation for today's conversation that when we air this, I'm going to have people who are very enthusiastic about the concept of helping young people with eco-anxiety and then people who go, ah, that's just a bunch of nonsense. The climate in the world has changed and will continue to change and always has changed, and these are just natural cycles and if we do too much we're going to curtail industry and we're going to hurt people's standard of living. So that's a really long statement to ask you have you seen those conflicts in the African context between left and right, and industry and activism.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a big question, I think, for us. A lot of the conversations within, you know, climate change has always been fossil fuel versus no fossil fuel, and we are heavily dependent on, you know oil in Africa and all of that, and so the conversation against has always been if we do not exploit and, you know, extract that oil, then how do we develop? You know, especially when you think of how, you know Western countries also developed from the same process and system. So it's a very difficult conversation. This talk about energy transition and what that looks like Within political systems. It's constantly finding a way to do the right thing, but not having a financial impact because we need the money right. So that has always been the difficulty how do we innovate in ways that are, how do we innovate in ways that do not harm the environment at the same time? And again, within industry, so we don't have the kind of left-right structure, but you have people saying, well, we need the money, we need the oil. You know we need to continue business as usual because that's the way, and you know the argument that we contributed least to the problem. So is climate change really an African problem to deal with? And whereas there, you know this other school of thought saying, well, you can't spend money on a dead planet. We are getting, you know the heat of the problem, so we need to hold, you know the West and people who have more money accountable, but also we need to do better and you know kind of leapfrog in a way that is smarter and cleaner and so pushing for more ambitious and urgent.
Speaker 2:You know climate, energy, people in rural parts of Nigeria and you find that they understand, you know these changes, you know things not being the same or how it was, but they will never call it climate change because, yeah, they would. You know they would, they would describe it in different ways. They would describe it in different ways and then kind of have experimented different approaches to adapt and to deal with. You know the problem to try this when this happens, to try this when this happens in terms of you know whether it's the ones who you know work with animals or the actual crop farmers. So it's, it's an issue that people are aware of but not directly linked out. They won't call it oh, this is a climate change problem or I'm an activist trying to make the world better in this way, basically, and then obviously we look to, unfortunately, we look to the West, we look to places like America for best practices and we don't see a lot of that in recent times and that, unfortunately, has emboldened people who think otherwise and has escalated the feelings of hopelessness, because it's almost like if the people who have more money, who should be doing right, don't even believe in the problem. You know, is there really a fighting chance really? And it's what we're having to grapple with, especially, you know, within the work that we do.
Speaker 2:This comes up a lot within our, you know, zen Cafe conversations. You know of young people saying you know, what really is the point If X, y is happening in this part of the world, with the people who have the resources, the people who can make a lot of changes? So, yeah, it's just a tough, tough reality, but it comes on our end, but in different ways. And energy transition has been the latest one. You know.
Speaker 2:Climate finance has also been a big one conversations around net zero and what that means for us in Africa and if we have the technology and the know-how to actually drive something like that. And moving beyond commitments and pledges to actually looking at what does a net zero mean for Africans, you know, for places where they haven't seen power at all and they would, you know, embrace anything at all, whether it's clean or dirty, and they need that power because that would push employment, that would push education and all of that. So it's definitely a difficult conversation when you think of what energy transition or even larger issues like climate adaptation look like for places like Africa.
Speaker 1:What have your conversations around nuclear energy been?
Speaker 2:That's not something that comes up a lot within us, to be honest, so it's not something that we have really paid attention to. That we have really paid attention to.
Speaker 1:It's such an interesting. Well, returning to your previous comments around kind of looking to the West, I know in the United States people say, well, if you look at right now who pollutes, you know who's polluting at an inordinate rate. You can look at China, you can look at India, and then China, and India, in particular China, with massive industrial revolution in a very, very short amount of time, much shorter than the United States was, but because of the population, you know, a significant impact, kind of. The comments are well, yeah, well, you know the U? S, you guys had your modernization, you had your massive standard of living. Uh, increases in in. Now we're doing it, and we're doing it faster and we're doing it more efficiently.
Speaker 1:And we've had these, matt, the largest migration of humans in the history of the planet has been from rural to to urban China, right, uh, and then, of course, now china's population is slowing down and then you're going to have india. Um, I, I just always think about. It's almost this thing where you go. And, and as you mentioned africa, what we know is that africa has contributed little to nothing to the to the problem, right, from an industrialization standpoint. Um, but you're suffering inordinate impacts. And then you look to us and we go, oh well, we're doing this, check out china and china's like, well, you guys caused this, yeah, hundred years, and so meanwhile it's kind of I can see where that I I'm getting anxious just having this conversation with you. Yeah, it's stressful, yeah, and the reason I bring up the nuclear is, just as it's always been a curiosity of mine, because nuclear energy is something that I've heard now in recent conversations, in terms of sustainability and impact to the environment, as long as there's not a nuclear disaster but because of Chernobyl and because of Three Mile Island in New York that, by the way, no one died from Three Mile Island and the Japanese power plant disaster that was caused by a tsunami that also had minimal impact, but those are in the press and these high profile events that just drive massive fear.
Speaker 1:And so much of our dialogue, so much of our decision-making is, as you say, is narrative driven, and if the narrative is not complete and the narrative isn't comprehensive and the narrative is not thoughtful, then we're all just making I always use this term intellectually lazy or knee-jerk reaction decisions and no one's asking hey, how's this going to play in Nigeria? Or how is this going to play with this particular ethnic group that has already been marginalized multiple times over and now, because of changes to the environment, they're having to migrate, and now they're maybe even I'm sure we're seeing loss of native languages, we're seeing loss of native practices, agricultural practices, right Like these are really really critical issues. How is Susti Vibes sustained? Do you get donations or talk to us about that?
Speaker 2:Sure, so we do get donations, but oftentimes we're applying for grants yeah, from, you know, locally, within corporations in Nigeria or, you know, outside the country. So we have funders, like you know, you know, based in America, who are interested in youth work, youth and climate work, who are interested in climate change and mental health work. So it's constantly a game of applying, spending late nights and just pouring a lot of our times applying, applying for grants. We do have a small social enterprise system where we have a space and people can come in to use the space, and so that also supports with some operational costs around the office. But funding is, and I think it will always be, an issue with climate work because there's so much to do and very little resources and opportunities available. And I think it will always be an issue with climate work because there's so much to do and very little resources and opportunities available. And I think with Africa, we're constantly in competition. Unfortunately, everyone is trying to apply and just say the right things to get the funding in. So it's not the easiest process, it's not the most ideal, I would say, because it almost reinforces that kind of capitalist struggle mentality and you know we're constantly having to work hard to look for funding.
Speaker 2:One of my colleagues and I were just talking about how it's almost like we spend more time, you know, applying for grants than actually doing you know the work that we want to do, and you can fall into a trap where you just do the work that your donor needs and you just check that box rather than what you actually want to do. So it's very difficult and I would say with Susti Vibes, we probably could have gone a lot farther if we took all kinds of funding. You know so. For example, we'd never set money from an oil and gas company, and even though they are the richest corporations in Nigeria. But that means that we have to stay true to our mission and remain, you know, less, you know less sustainable, I would say, just as a result. So we still have to keep some of our projects more scale until we're able to find those, you know, the right kind of donors that are flexible and are mission oriented and that trust us enough to, you know, run some of these projects large scale.
Speaker 1:We've spoken about a lot of the challenges, the impacts of anxiety and fear and hopelessness and you talked about. There are these retreats or these conferences that are being set up so that climate activists can go and rest somewhere. On the flip side of that, Jennifer, what gives you hope? Why do you get up every day and keep doing this work?
Speaker 2:That is such a great question. I think, and I really believe, that the work that I do is important. It's creating that ripple effect, right? Someone sees our work and they're motivated to keep showing up. So that alone helps me, right. And I think that if we crash out and we're no longer able to do our work, it's going to impact a lot of things that you know, a lot of dreams that people have. It's going to impact the way people imagine what climate action looks like and for me, that helps me.
Speaker 2:You know, just thinking that I'm supporting one person in their own aspiration of you know making change, like you know, making climate action a reality in their community, doing something. So it's really been about that, you know, beyond serving me and helping me stay sane, because equal anxiety is something that I have grappled with. So I am energized by showing up and doing something about you know the problem, but I think about it the entire value chain of you know who gets impacted beyond the beneficiaries who come to our events, you know who are supported one way or the other is the fact that more and more people are also thinking solutions. More and more people are thinking well, you know, this space has helped me think of something I can start.
Speaker 2:You know you've talked about nuclear energy today. You know that's something that could come up within. You know our conversations where someone decides well, I'm going to study this in-depthly, I'm going to do something about it and I want to work in this space. So for me, it's beyond the adaptation. I think the work that I'm doing has that double-pronged approach where we're actually looking at ways to mitigate the climate crisis. One conversation or one resilience, you know approach at the time and I think that's really powerful.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you mentioned the ripple effect, because you know most organizations, most nonprofits, most businesses in the world, most businesses in the world are small yeah, they're one or two or five or 10 people, and without that energy, almost the butterfly effect, right, if the butterfly doesn't flap its wings, then we'll never know if it's going to change the air currents around the world somewhere, right, and so I really appreciate you for that. How have your studies connected to the work of Susti Vibes?
Speaker 2:Well, that's also an interesting story.
Speaker 2:So my bachelor's was in biochemistry, and this was many years ago.
Speaker 2:I graduated in 2011, and I came out of, you know, the bachelor's just wanting to learn about sustainability, learn about the work that I do, and I couldn't get into a master's program for eight whole years and when I finally got into it, that's how I started doing a lot of the work on climate change and mental health. So it's been an interesting journey for me and I'm now completing an MPH. I think I'm motivated to keep learning about the ways that I can do my work better, but also a part of it has felt like I need to get this validation. You know, with these degrees, that these days I've started to question, you know, if that's really necessary, but it's been an interesting experience. I would say how you know, doing one thing leads to the other. You know, with the masters, with the MPH, and you know this journey that I found myself in. But I'm privileged to keep doing my work and my studies side by side and I know that that is such a gift and a privilege to be able to do both side by side.
Speaker 1:I have deep respect for you and your multiple energy efforts. Obviously, as a parent of a young child, that's an additional, that's the most important area that your energy needs to go to. So you are balancing and managing. So thank you again, you know, for taking the time today from New Jersey to balance parenthood and your ongoing work on climate, as well as your graduate program. And I know the feeling of being kind of halfway through.
Speaker 1:I always talk about like the caterpillar. Before the caterpillar turns into a butterfly it has to go into the cocoon, you know, and then in the cocoon and it's like there's some point in there which it's probably just like some sort of amorphous green juice before it comes out as a butterfly. And being in the middle of a graduate program kind of feels that way. Sometimes, right, you're like, oh, please don't ask me about my programs going, because I'm in a program and I don't know when I'm going to come out of the program. So I'm kind of green juice, right, thank you. What are you? You I'm just. I have two more questions for you, sure? What are you most proud of in your work and that the organization? I know it's not about you. So what are you most proud of in the work of susti vibes and overall in your climate activism. That's a great question.
Speaker 2:I think I'm proud of the fact that we're able to bring a lot of our ideas to life. It's incredible, you know. We say, oh, we're going to create space to talk about these issues, a space that validates the emotions that young people feel, and we're going to make this a thing. And we do it, and it's like the world catches up with it. You know, we're then getting features from National Geographic, you know, and all of that, we think, well, we're not going to stop here. We're going to invite youth-led organizations from other parts of the continent to join this walk and to build on it from there. And we go ahead and do it.
Speaker 2:I think that ability to dream and bring things to life is one of our proudest, you know, accomplishments, where we're constantly thinking how are we going to make this happen? And somehow, you know, it just aligns that. You know, we're able to pour in our time, build out the concept notes, and it happens. And you know one example recently is we're just currently concluding a project where we're working with young girls who live in Lagos and trying to build this idea of rest side by side with feminist leadership, and when we were writing the concept notes, it just seemed so, you know, like not something anyone would want to jump on right now. Who's talking about resting with all of the issues going on? But we were very fortunate to, you know, find a funder and find the supports to drive the work. And we've just closed out cohort one of the training, and it's just incredible to see that we're able to bring these things to life.
Speaker 2:And to the previous question, Susti Vibes and I think my walk is proof of the things that young people can bet, the things that young people can do. We are 100% youth-led and kind of everyone that we work with is a young person. We're all dreaming together, we're all thinking through how to, you know, make some change and our agenda is just to make the world a better place for, you know, ourselves and you know, the future generation coming, and I think it's just incredible to see some of the things that we've done, in spite of the odds, in spite of not having, you know, not having a salary that you can brag to your friends about, you know, not having you know things that you know like, when you think about it, comparable, but we feel very, we feel very fulfilled in this purposeful work. It's exhausting, but you know, we can be proud of some of the things that we've done, the lives that we've changed, and just seeing how people's journeys are shaped because they interact with you know our work one way or the other.
Speaker 1:As you mentioned the National Geographic. I want to congratulate you on being mentioned in there, and that's how I learned. That was the initial way in which you popped up on my radar and then went deeper with some research, but that's quite an honor, right? There's a lot of organizations and people and activists and initiatives around the world literally millions of them. So you're one in many millions, thank you. Millions of them. So so you're one. You're one in in many millions. Um, the last question is a hypothetical and I'm not even that much of a fan of billboards, but for the thought experiment, this is what. This is what the question is. You have a chance to create a billboard for the side of the, of the highway, the freeway, the, depending on where you are in the world we call them different things but a place that thousands and maybe millions of people pass by every day, week, month and year. What does your billboard say to the world about what you believe, about your work, about the way you see the present and the future?
Speaker 2:about the way you see the present and the future. That's such a big question, but lately I've just been resonating with the walks and quotes of someone I admire and really respect. His name is Dr Bayo Akomalafep. He's Nigerian for shuttles, I think, within the US and India, and you know he talks about. He has this really interesting quote that says the times are urgent and we need to slow down, and that has been. You know, that has been something that I've been thinking about a lot. You know how.
Speaker 2:You know this idea of slowing down can even drive and help, you know, with the eco-anxiety work that we do, but also with the climate crisis. So much of all that we do runs in such, you know, fumes and urgency and you know we're walking like it's a sprint, you know, and people are burnt out and exhausted and we're not making as much progress. So I want a billboard that encapsulates some of those ideas in terms of slowing down but holding space to realize that the times are indeed urgent, right, so that's not something to discard, but we want to slow down, we want to come together and we want to think of alternative ways of being and of doing, want to think of alternative ways of being and of doing. That's something I definitely want to build on. You know, following now and a lot of the work that we do pushes that. You know that idea of rest and slowing down, but I think bringing it forward into the climate conversation is something that I want to drive moving forward. That's ambitious, but yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a beautiful thing to think about, a beautiful sentiment to think about, especially in our incredibly and increasingly fast-paced world, yeah, where there is no break from the news cycle, the social media cycle, whatever cycle you want. There is no break from it unless we create that break, and the idea of getting away, getting quiet and getting reflective is really powerful.
Speaker 1:I really wanna thank you for your time today, jennifer, and for, as I mentioned previously, balancing multiple depends on your time we will link to Susti Vibes and some the National Geographic feature and other pieces in the show notes and I just wanted to really sincerely thank you and wish you the best in your continued visit in the United States and I'll let you get back to hanging out with your son.
Speaker 2:Thank you, this was amazing. Thank you, I really, really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
