Join the TransAfrican Climate Caravan of Hope

As I write this the Caravan of Hope has set off and we are wending our way through the hills of northern Burundi on our way to the border with Rwanda.

The evening air is sweet with the smell of woodsmoke and the countryside we are passing through is lush and fertile, vivid green banana groves and rich red earth. It’s not an image that squares with many people’s perceptions of global warming but, just as much as the more arid countries to the east, Burundi is experiencing temperature rises as a result of climate change.

Earlier today, at a ceremony to launch the Caravan of Hope, held in the presence of the vice-president of Burundi, we heard a woman farmer explain how changing weather patterns are playing havoc with traditional ways of life. Fluctuating rainfall during the rainy season – intense downpours on some days, on others no rain at all – is leading to failed harvests and malnutrition in her community. There is a lack of data to definitively link changing rain patterns to climate change but what the woman describes is consistent with climate scientists’ predictions for the region. If anyone in the stadium was in any doubt about the urgency of acting on climate change, they were surely dispelled by this woman’s account of lives and livelihoods in jeopardy.

But though this was sobering stuff, the day was not without its positive moments. Mithika, head of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, who have coordinated this initiative, might have been speaking about the caravan when he described the growing sense of solidarity among African campaigning groups on the climate change. “In Africa, we are united by one spirit to find a solution to this problem,” he said – and if the caravan is about anything, it is about embodying that spirit.

So I hope you’ll continue to follow us, as we move from the hills of Burundi and Rwanda to the open plain of east Africa and eventually to South Africa to demand climate justice at the UN climate talks in Durban. And I hope you’ll keep in touch with our progress and the stories of the people we meet along the way.

Ally Carnwath
Communications Officer
Christian Aid