Issue #9. Cultivating Climate Advocates: How Jonan Asingwire is Shaping the Next Climate Advocates With the Green Leaders Project in Uganda.

Cultivating Climate Advocates: How Jonan Asingwire is Shaping the Next Climate Advocates With the Green Leaders Project in Uganda. 

As a teenager, Jonan Asingwire became passionate about Environmental conservation. This passion was born out of two things; his experience in school, and also, his experience while growing up back home in Mbarara, a district in Uganda, 274 kms south of the capital, Kampala. 

“I had the privilege of attending two traditional schools for my O&A Levels and this is where I was introduced to environmental issues like climate change through the various clubs that we had like Environment Club, Conservation Club and Wildlife Club. I understand not so many schools have such clubs, so it was a privilege to learn the effects of climate change at such a young age.” 

Learning about Global Climate Change and Environmental Degradation made Jonan understand phenomena that he had lived through while growing up. “In Mbarara, I come from a place that is within the dry cattle corridor, while in Bushenyi, where I studied my primary, it was much more rainy and green. This difference in climate was intriguing to me” 

Uganda's Cattle Corridor is a semi-arid region stretching diagonally from northeastern to southwestern Uganda, covering about 35–43% of the country's land area. 

It is dominated by pastoral rangelands and supports approximately 90% of Uganda's cattle population, making it vital for livestock and rain-fed agriculture.

 However, the area faces challenges such as erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts, and increasing land degradation due to overgrazing, deforestation, and unsustainable cultivation practices. 

Climate change exacerbates resource scarcity, impacting livelihoods and forcing communities to adopt coping strategies like water vending and drought-resistant farming. 

“Bushenyi was like an obsession for me. It was rainy, full of well-preserved 50-year-old forests, had swamps and springs, while Mbarara had longer dry spells. The teenager in me wanted to change that, so I got interested in planting trees at home. Luckily, my dad was also passionate about the environment, and he had started the tree planting much earlier.” 

Jonan 's love to regenerate an area that had been degraded by overgrazing prompted him to learn more about nature and climate change. At university, he decided to pursue an environmental engineering degree, which he hoped would equip him better to address the Nexus of environmental degradation and Climate Change. 

After completing his four-year course, he decided to start Island of Hope Uganda, a non-profit whose mission was to teach the next generation of Ugandan leaders about climate change and how to combat it. 

“I knew, and had an academic background in Environmental issues such as climate change, and believed more young people desired the opportunity to understand these complex environmental issues. However, I was aware that all this  would not be enough to run the organisation, so I leaned into my previous 4-year experience as a leader with AIESEC.” 

AIESEC is a global, youth-led, non-profit organization founded in 1948, dedicated to empowering young people through leadership development and cross-cultural exchange. 

Island of Hope Uganda, in collaboration with AIESEC Uganda, has a flagship program called the Green Leaders Project (GLP). Launched in 2022, the Green Leaders Project (GLP) is a six-week youth-driven program aimed at accelerating climate action and preparing participants for careers in sustainability. 

“For us to accelerate climate action, we decided to focus on university students. There is so much talent at the university, but they lack a sense of direction regarding climate action. We built a curriculum with the help of AIESEC-international volunteers from Kenya, Brazil, Belgium, and Japan to facilitate a learning  experience  for students to understand and contribute to climate action in Uganda.” 

The curriculum is centered on understanding the climate change phenomenon and exploring actionable solutions through mitigation and adaptation strategies. A key focus is achieving "Net-Zero" greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050, aligning with the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C global warming scenario. 

Participants learn about mitigation actions across various sectors, the role of technology and behavioral changes, climate laws, policies, and the financial gaps that need to be addressed to meet emissions targets, both with theory and practical lessons. 

The program also emphasizes Uganda's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) within the global framework of climate action, encouraging participants to analyze and contextualize these commitments at a local level. 

The GLP aims to equip young leaders with the tools to evaluate climate solutions based on feasibility, effectiveness, interaction, and future trends. 

Through group activities, participants analyze Uganda's official NDC reports and assess mitigation actions using a step-by-step evaluation process. 

This hands-on approach fosters collaboration and critical thinking while promoting innovative solutions tailored to local contexts. Additionally, the program includes interactive elements like surveys and competitions to reinforce learning and engagement. 

Ultimately, the GLP aspires to cultivate a generation of informed and proactive leaders capable of driving sustainable development and achieving long-term climate goals. These leaders move into various fields like the corporate world, non-profit or academia to drive climate action. 

The Green Leaders Project was initially launched in Makerere University in 2022 with its first cohort, but has since been expanded to two other Ugandan universities. 

So far, six cohorts have graduated from the Green Leaders Project, and Jonan estimates that over 1,200 leaders have signed up. However, he believes a core of 300 students signed up and completed all the program modules and have since actively pursued climate action. 

The program is free to the students, and this has been enabled through self-sponsorship from Jonan and a few partners that have come on board, like Salaam Bank, Makerere University, Kyambogo University and Uganda Christian University, Mukono. 

However, Jonan expects to move away from relying on partnerships and more towards a sustainable model. “We have been running the entire program as a physical program, but we want to incorporate a hybrid model to make it more convenient. We also want to start charging the students a fee so that they can value the program more, and also have intentional students as part of our cohort.” 

Jonan is proud of the fact that GLP teaches the next generation of leaders about climate action in the context of our country. He explains why this is important. 

“Climate action is divided between mitigation and adaptation. The global north doesn't feel the effects of climate change like the global South, so we need to understand climate action in our context, rather than in their context.” 

He adds, “The global north has exceptional technology when it comes to weather predictions, and by and large, they are food secure and thus, they are not as vulnerable to the effects as the global South, so mitigation makes sense.”  

“However, we (the global South) have a challenge of development, and are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and thus adaptation makes more sense for us. The Climate Change Act passed by the Ugandan parliament clarified our position and institutionalised climate adaptation for Uganda,” concludes Jonan.