Rugby sevens star Kevin Wekesa: ‘I am not blaming Europeans but I must highlight climate injustices’

“Most well-known group who talk astir ambiance alteration are successful North America and Europe,” says Kenyan rugby sevens prima Kevin Wekesa, “but for america this is simply a very applicable conversation. It is not only astir early tournaments aliases large world pledges. In Kenya, we spot nan effects successful rising heat, cracked pitches and changing upwind successful communities wherever young athletes are increasing up.”

A twelvemonth earlier competing successful his first Olympic Games astatine Paris 2024, Wekesa responded to Kenya’s relegation from nan apical tier of world sevens by offering free rugby coaching successful schools crossed Kenya. After travelling to a schoolhouse successful Kirinyaga connected nan slopes of Mount Kenya, a bedewed and verdant region, Wekesa recovered an unplayable barren section and was forced to cancel nan session. One of nan students told Wekesa that conditions had been akin for 2 months, while different suggested nan unfamiliar upwind was because of ambiance change.

Play Green besides focuses connected ambiance alteration acquisition successful Kenyan schools. “We activity pinch children because they are inheriting nan ambiance crisis, not because they are causing it,” Wekesa says. “Kenyan children person a very mini c footprint compared to children increasing up successful high-carbon economies for illustration bluish Europe, yet they are often much exposed to nan consequences: drought, floods, heat, h2o shortages, nutrient insecurity, unwellness and missed school. I americium not blaming European children but I must item ambiance injustices.”

Kevin Wekesa playing for Kenya against Samoa astatine nan Paris 2024 Olympics. Photograph: ZUMA Press, Inc./Walter Arce/ZUMA/Alamy

Play Green does not only dainty children arsenic victims of ambiance change, but arsenic progressive participants successful protecting their environment. “For me, ambiance action is practical, visible, and rooted successful community, conscionable for illustration rugby. It takes a organization to tackle ambiance action; it is not astir pointing fingers.” Wekesa explains that galore children successful susceptible communities are alert of ambiance change, but acquisition empowers them to return mini actions that trim its impacts, specified arsenic conserving water.

After giving ambiance alteration talks and playing rugby pinch students, Wekesa tasks them pinch adopting trees planted by Play Green, penning their names connected a explanation on pinch nan twelvemonth nan sapling was planted. When Wekesa realised that children were sometimes excessively quiet to play rugby aft school, Play Green chiefly plants consequence trees — avocado, mango, guava and different indigenous type — to supply nourishment. Wekesa is besides piloting a strategy that provides children pinch wholegrain porridge.

The trees planted successful each schoolhouse dangle connected nan ambiance of each location, which Wekesa learned astir aft visiting nan Kenya Forest Reserve. He acknowledges that location are much effective ways to trim c emissions than planting trees, but successful summation to providing nutrition, explains that they springiness students “a consciousness of belonging” to their surroundings while providing shadiness that tin beryllium utilized arsenic outdoor classrooms. “I retrieve galore times doing a lit instruction nether a character erstwhile it was excessively basking to beryllium successful a classroom.”

Throughout May, Wekesa is school rugby, distributing pre-used rugby balls and planting consequence trees successful 10 schools that person expressed liking successful joining Play Green. So far, he has held workshops successful complete 40 Kenyan schools and planted complete 6,200 trees. Some students who participated successful nan first workshops person moreover introduced Play Green initiatives to caller schools while progressing done their education.

Wekesa, who is still only 25 and precocious vanished his mechanical engineering degree, recognises that travelling to play rugby has its ain c footprint and tries to minimise what he can. But he says that different people’s pledges, specified arsenic utilizing sustainable transport to be sports events, motivate him to do more, because it is grounds that group prosecute pinch ambiance alteration done sport. “It creates a wider group of group who are for illustration a Play Green squad astir nan world.”

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