My name is Hassan Mowlid Yasin, and I am a public health and public administration professional from Somalia. I am also an environmental activist, co-founder and vice-chairperson of the Somali Greenpeace Association, and the National Chapter Lead for Somalia for the African Youth Initiative on Climate Change (AYICC).
Photo: Hassan Mowlid Yasin
I took my first online course on the UN CC:Learn platform in 2017, and since then my life – in relation to the environment, and climate change issues – has changed completely. I have now taken ten different UN CC:Learn courses, including those on Gender and Environment, Human Health and Climate Change, and Children and Climate Change. These have helped me to begin advocating on climate change and environmental protection.
Through various initiatives, I have now trained more than 1,000 youth on what climate change is and how it is impacting our life. I have also co-founded the Somali Greenpeace Association (SOGPA), which aims to address climate change issues, food security and biodiversity loss in my country. Through the association, we have taken a number of different actions to raise awareness around climate change and environmental issues among different groups of people.
Photo: Hassan Mowlid Yasin
For instance, we have developed a number of tree-planting initiatives at different schools, youth centres and at the Somali National University. As part of these initiatives, we have conducted field training and education sessions on the importance of tree planting as a climate mitigation action, as well as awareness training on the negative impacts of deforestation, and sessions on plant protection.
We’ve also conducted different education programmes on climate change, and for World Environment Day 2020 trained more than 100 local youth on the importance of biodiversity for addressing climate issues. This including educating these on the interlinkages between climate, biodiversity, and peace and security. SOGPA also raised awareness on these linkages on World Peace Day, which we celebrated with the theme “Give Peace to the Environment”. As well as youth groups, we’ve also trained the Somali police on the issue of environmental protection.
Photo: Hassan Mowlid Yasin
Finally, developing this knowledge and understand has also allowed me to partner with like-minded youth groups who share similar climate and environmental goals. I’m now a representative on numerous youth organizations in both Africa and beyond, including the United Nations Environment Programme for Children and Youth (UNEP MGCY), Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN), African Youth Initiative on Climate Change (AYICC), Plant for the Planet (PFP), Climate Change Educators Network (CE Educator’s Network), and African Union’s Youth, Peace and Security Network for the East African Region (AU-EA YPS Network).
Get Involved:
Are you involved in training your local community on climate change? How are you doing that and what results have you reached? Share your testimonial on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and tag UN CC:Learn. We are looking forward to getting in touch with you!
Start your learning journey:
Access our e-learning platform on unccelearng.org and take free courses on climate change and green economy. You may be interested in learning about: