A young girl has been crowned to spearhead scouts’ climate action agenda in Kenya due to her love for environmental conservation. 

Alice Wanjiru, a ten-year old girl was crowned during the World Environment Day celebrations in Embu County on Wednesday June 6, 2024.

The Brookhouse School pupil is going to every length and breadth to ensure that the war on climate change becomes successful.

Through the Green Hummingbird Foundation that nurtures her dream, Wanjiru is already growing over 5,000 trees at the Afro Forest along Nairobi’s Ruai area, and she is hoping to grow trees to the tune of 10 million by the year 2032.

“Climate change effects are sparing no one including the children. When we had floods recently, we lost children, some were displaced, and education was disrupted. Something must be done to tackle climate change,” she says.

To achieve her dream, the Foundation to which Wanjiru is the Climate Action Ambassador, has designed some initiatives that will guide the activities that target children. 

One of them is to have children plant trees while celebrating their birthdays.

However, Wanjiru’s vision requires running intensive programs that require a huge size of human resource. 

To this end, the Foundation has a working agreement with the Kenya Scouts Association which has over 2.5 million members, a network that will boost Wanjiru’s efforts to realize her environment conservation agenda.

In recognition of Wanjiru’s efforts, the Scouts body has now crowned her as the Scouts Climate action Ambassador. 

She will now lead other scouts in conserving the environment. 

Speaking during the crowning ceremony witnessed by Environment Cabinet Secretary Soipan Tuya, Scouts Association Chief Executive Officer Moses Danda said that her crowning goes a long way to motivating the young generation to actively engage in positive environmental activities that will help minimize the effects of climate change.

Wanjiru’s crowning comes a few weeks before an upcoming Worldwide Scouts’ Conference in July this year in Sussex, United Kingdom to which she is expected to address over 8,000 delegates from across the world on the climate action agenda.

One of the initiatives that Wanjiru is running is habitat conservation. This corresponds with a program run by the scouts’ association to clean water bodies in Kenya and conserve the marine environment. 

To this end, Wanjiru will be in Kilifi County this weekend to lead a host of scouts in cleaning the beach along the Indian Ocean.

Another of her initiatives through the Foundation is having tree nurseries. As of now, Wanjiru has a nursery with over 1000 seedlings at the Afro Forest. 

During the World Environment Day, the Kenya Forest Service pledged to supply her with seedlings during all her tree planting activities. 

Further, the forest body said that it would establish a tree nursery at Wanjiru’s school to provide an opportunity for other kids who are willing to engage in climate action but lack the capacity to get seedlings.

On her part, the CS pledged to support Wanjiru’s initiatives, even as she emphasized on the government’s plan to support all the climate action champions in the country.

“Those who thought that the climate change story is hot air must change their mindset. The effects of the recent floods in Kenya could have been minimized had the country taken seriously the call to conserve the environment. 

“But we are glad now that the climate agenda is quickly sinking into Kenya’s minds. We will support Wanjiru and other Champions,” she pledged.

Nancy Muiruri, the Green Hummingbird Foundation’s Project Manager, opines that the ability of humanity to stop the climate change problem is in its power, and yet she holds the view that it has to start from a change in attitude.  

“To achieve a positive attitude towards the environment, children need mentorship and support from parents and guardians. We call on all adults to be actively involved in nurturing the young-ones in a matter of environment. 

“Let us be the generation that rose to the challenge, the generation that wrote a new chapter of sustainability in the history of our planet,” she said.