“This is what Climate Leadership looks like!”Jennifer Uchendu – Climate, Youth & Mental Health Activist & Ecofeminist
One unseasonably wet and hot Tuesday afternoon in mid-July, a Climate Café buddy and XR comrade met me at Brighton Train Station. We were heading into town, for an “Evening with Jennifer Uchendu”[i] at ONCA – ONCA is a “space for change” [ii], an “arts charity that bridges social and environmental justice issues with creativity.”[iii] Jennifer Uchendu, one ONCA’s trustees and a researcher publishing on eco-anxiety as experienced by young people of colour, did not disappoint.
Throughout the talk, Jen spoke with integrity and gravitas on the many practical ways she has mobilised climate conscious youth in Nigeria to form community and take action; and how she has personally challenged overwhelming institutional inertia and responded with deep learnings and research on our psychological responses to the global existential threat of the unfolding climate crises. We, eco-anxious activists of the audience, were all moved Jen’s story; it speaks to how we can all reclaim ourselves as powerful and resourceful activists, in the face of overwhelm and hopelessness.
In 2016, Jennifer launches Sustyvibes[iv] in Nigeria, a sustainability blog which highlighted the intersection of eco-emotions with justice and climate crisis. Sustyvibes rapidly evolved from a blog to a structured nonprofit organisation. Over 700 members or “Sustyvibers” of youth groups focus on environmental and climate action[v]. Sustvibes aims to make the climate crisis “cool, relatable and actionable”. Sustyvibes’ core focus is on Education – going into schools to make young people aware of the problem and get them thinking about solutions. They plant trees in schools and are starting an upcycling scheme.
Our relationship with nature or the more-then-human is evidently a big part of her work, linked with gender equality and justice through her ecofeminism. Jennifer describes her early relationship with nature and experiences of eco-grief and anger when the mango tree in her compound was cut down. At the age of 5 she was struck by the injustice and outraged by this loss to their community. Jennifer emotively linked her understandings of the forms of oppression on nature and on women underpinning her eco-feminism. Ecofeminism is actioned through Sustyvibes to empower women and at the same time protect environment. Jennifer noted the absence of women in environmental policy space and advocated a different way for sharing and distributing power. For example, training girls in the Niger delt in photo journalism, where oil spills, biodiversity loss and oppression and violence is rife, agency of youth can be at the centre of the conversation.
Uchendu highlighted that in the crucible of the polycrisis humanity is currently living with - inflations and biodiversity crisis – care for ourselves and care for each other are crucial. Her ethos is to reawaken people’s consciousness – to realise that we are not powerless. She discussed how previously people in her country had felt poverty and food was a bigger problem. And yet, our life support system, the environment is what provides this food and poverty, or lack of wealth and abundance. Therefore, we must become advocates for our environment.
Jennifer became and climate and mental health researcher in 2022, launching Africa research on eco-anxiety because “we have to tell our stories”. The more
problems we see the more opportunities young people have to take action.
[vi] Jen has co-authored an international research study with 23 young people across 15 countries to amplify the voices of young people of colour and their first hand feelings about the climate crisis. These include anger, powerlessness, betrayal and hopelessness. There is a sense that people in power are not listening or fighting on their behalf. “Many of us so regularly experience invalidating responses that we feel we have been ‘gaslighted’ – as if there is something wrong with us for caring about the unjust impacts and roots of the crisis.”[vii]
Naming and validation eco-anxiety is vital for the intersection of mental health and climate change.
Jennifer eloquently spoke of the dissonance and “burden of hope” young people experience around the climate crisis. Whilst often young people’s voices are excluded or tokenised in policy making spheres, their anxiety and grief is compounded by the sense of powerlessness. She spoke ardently about the sense of hopelessness in Nigeria where the economy is dependent on fossil fuels, and yet “systems designed to exploit the environment also exploit our future”. The chair of the COP28 also being oil chief highlighted as a kind of meta gas-lightening, undermining the entire point of the meetings.[ix] Uchendu described her experience of attending COP22 as being her “peak eco-anxiety”. She realised then she would either give up, dive deep into the research on eco-anxiety. Fortunately, she did the latter, and realised that listening to exploring these deep emotions help us wake up and start to care.
Climate change is here. Last year one million people were displaced in Nigeria alone. We can’t just give up because of COP. The “toll of awareness” is huge, and there is an “urge to stop”. Her friend Britt Wray, recently wrote a book, “Generation Dread”[x] Uchendu discussed the widening divide between generations is part of the crisis and disconnect. She is part of a team conducting Intergenerational conversations on climate in Lagos, UK and USA for research Standford University, involving individuals over the age of 55 and younger people between 18 and 30 years of age. Including Elders and their wisdoms, helping older people feel included and develop agency and resilience within and between generations, amplifying their stories to enable an “all hands on deck” approach to facing the climate crisis: It’s “Just one place we all have”. During the discussion of “intergenerational” conversations and alliances around the climate crisis, I was reminded of the truth and reconciliation processes in post-apartheid South Africa and Northern Ireland.[xi]
Her ethos in the face of overwhelm and burnt out with eco-anxiety and international institutional ineptitude, corruption and inaction in the unravelling climate crisis, is “to keep lighting different matches”. Jennifer also find resilience in her “gratitude for the community we have formed” with Sustyvibes in Nigeria. She talked about her Christian faith as a huge source of support for her. She said she is still writing the project on role of spirituality in her work on eco-anxiety. In a recent interview with Jen on the Black Earth podcast, Marion Atieno Osieyo surmised that “eco-anxiety is a tool for collective liberation”[xii]. Jen reinforced this with “your liberation is bound with mine” and that radical compassion is the key. I am deeply grateful for Jen’s sharing her talk, as it moves me from a sense of shame-bound privilege[xiii] to energised responsibility and “radical compassion”.
REFERENCES:
[i] https://onca.org.uk/event/an-evening-with-climate-justice-advocate-jennifer-uchendu/
[ii] https://onca.org.uk
[iii] ibid
[iv]Sustainability Movement for Young Africans https://sustyvibes.org
[v] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SustyVibes
[vi]“Not about us without us” – the feelings and hopes of climate-concerned young people around the world
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09540261.2022.2126297
[vii] ibid
[viii] ibid
[ix]Carrington, D. (2023) ‘Absolute scandal’: UAE state oil firm able to read Cop28 climate summit emails Guardian, June 2023
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/07/uae-oil-firm-cop28-climate-summit-emails-sultan-al-jaber-adnoc
[x] Wray, B. (2022) Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis. Knopf Canada Publishers
[xi] “A truth and reconciliation commission is an official body tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government or other actors, in the hope of resolving conflict left over from the past.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commission#:~:text=A%20truth%20and%20reconciliation%20commission,left%20over%20from%20the%20past.
[xii] Black Earth Podcast: All the feels: understanding eco-anxiety with Jennifer Uchendu interviewed by Marion Atieno Osieyo https://www.blackearthpodcast.com/episodes/episode-2-all-the-feels-exploring-eco-anxiety-with-jennifer-uchendu
[xiii] Jeremy Williams contends that owning our priviledge by seeing it as means to greater responsibility for action can unlock the shame-blame paralysis of white-priviledged individuals: Williams, J. (2021) Climate Change Is Racist Race, Privilege and the Struggle for Climate Justice. Bolinda Publishing PTY Ltd