• About
    • Board of Directors
    • Staff
    • Meet our Donors
    • News
  • Issues
    • Safety
    • Opportunity
    • Reporting
    • Recognition
    • Equity
  • Programs
    • Reporting Fellowships
      • Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship
      • ¡Exprésate! LGBTQI+ Reporting Initiative
      • Gender Justice Reporting Initiative
      • Global Health Reporting Initiative
      • Round Earth Media
    • Grants & Funds
      • Fund For Women Journalists
      • Fund for Indigenous Journalists: Reporting on MMIWG2T
      • Kari Howard Fund for Narrative Journalism
      • Kim Wall Memorial Fund
      • Reproductive Rights Reporting Fund
      • Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice in the Americas
    • Physical & Digital Safety
      • Online Abuse and Harassment
      • Hostile Environment Training
      • Next Gen Safety Trainers
      • Women in Politics and Media
    • Mentorship & Professional Development
      • Gwen Ifill Mentorship Program
      • Fellowship Program for Afghan Women Journalists in Exile
    • Emergency Assistance
      • Emergency Fund for Women Journalists
      • Black Journalists Therapy Relief Fund
      • Alex Duval Smith Memorial Fund
    • Past Programs
  • Reporting
  • Community
  • Awards
    • Anja Niedringhaus Award
    • Courage in Journalism Award
    • Gwen Ifill Award
    • Annenberg Justice for Women Journalists Award
  • Resources
    • Self Care & Trauma
    • Research
    • Impact Reports
    • Webinars
  • Search
Search Donate
Reporting

CLIMATE FWD: One Thing You Can Do: Make Smart Donations

January 29, 2020 | Shola Lawal

Also this week, African climate activists and a popular Berkeley class

Welcome to the Climate Fwd: newsletter. The New York Times climate team emails readers once a week with stories and insights about climate change. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

A photo erases an activist, and highlights a problem

By Shola Lawal

Young people are at the forefront of climate activism. But the most prominent young people challenging world leaders and corporations are often from the West. We hear and see much less about climate activists from Africa.

Vanessa Nakate, left, in Davos, Switzerland, last week. She was initially cropped out of the photo. Credit…Markus Schreiber/Associated Press

That’s why an episode at the World Economic Forum last week in Davos, Switzerland, stung for many Africans. The Associated Press published a photo of youth activists at the meeting. But editors at the agency cropped out Vanessa Nakate, an activist from Uganda. She was the only person of color in the group. The symbolism was not good.

“It was, like, the hardest thing,” she said in a video on her Twitter feed. “What really hurt me the most is that I was just thinking about the people from my country, and the people from Africa, and how much I’ve seen people being affected.”

“Who is going to be able to speak for all those people?” she asked.

The A.P. ultimately replaced the cropped photo with the original version and issued an apology. The agency said a photo editor had removed Ms. Nakate because of composition problems: The building behind her was distracting, a statement said.

Africa will be hard-hit by climate change even though it is a tiny emitter of greenhouse gases. And, while many parts of the world can afford to think of climate disruptions in the future tense, many Africans are already living with them. Worse, many African countries don’t have the resources needed to deal with climate change.

That’s why Ms. Nakate and many others are speaking out for Africa. Youth-led climate and environmental initiatives, from plastic repurposing programs to tree-planting initiatives, are having an impact across the continent. But they get very little attention.

It’s important that those efforts are seen, too.

About the Author

Shola Lawal

Shola Lawal is an independent filmmaker and freelance West African correspondent for the Mail & Guardian, a South African-based newspaper. Lawal is currently based in Lagos, Nigeria. Her work focuses… Read More.

Related Topics
Environment
Social Justice
More From This Author
Coronavirus Halts Street Protests, but Climate Activists Have a Plan The Original Long Islanders Fight to Save Their Land From a Rising Sea The Coronavirus and Carbon Emissions See All

Sign Up For Our Mailing List

Mission

We unleash the potential of women journalists as champions of press freedom to transform the global news media.

Address

1625 K Street NW, Suite 1275
Washington, DC 20006, USA

Contact Us

info@iwmf.org
(+1) 202-496-1992

Connect
Privacy Terms of Service

Copyright © 2023 International Women's Media Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
Nonprofit Web Design by NMC.