Zimbabwe: Climate action through dance!

DW (English)

Dancing is joyful and fun. And, as an environmentalist in Zimbabwe proves, it's also a great way to get people interested in climate action.

Transcript

00:00This is Kuwazana, a suburb of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare.

00:05It's home to 17-year-old Lincoln Marambauche.

00:10For over two weeks, the trainee mechanical engineer

00:13has been practicing a new dance routine.

00:19Then his crew, called the Pandas,

00:21are preparing for Dance for Climate Action,

00:24a community-based song and dance competition

00:26organized for the second year running by Greening Kuwanzana,

00:31a local environmentalist group.

00:51Zimbabwe currently produces over 300,000 tonnes

00:54of plastic waste every year.

00:56Much of it is dumped in public spaces,

00:59causing environmental as well as health hazards.

01:03Awareness of the causes and effects of the climate crisis

01:07and other environmental issues is low among Zimbabwe's youth.

01:12According to a recent study,

01:13one in ten can't name a single climate adaptation measure,

01:17such as recycling or clean energy.

01:20This year's competition theme is Dancing for a Plastic-Free Future.

01:34Dance for Climate Action is an event that uses dance and, of course, poetry

01:39to communicate messages of climate action, environmental justice.

01:43We believe that art has a unique way of speaking to people,

01:47whereas academia states facts.

01:52Art can deal with emotions.

01:55It can bring this sense of kinship

02:00to remind us that together we are the environment.

02:09The competition among the teams is on.

02:11The goal is to communicate the problem of plastic pollution in a performance.

02:18Lincoln and his group, Pandas, are last year's defending champions.

02:24But this year they are not as lucky.

02:27Although they miss out on the top prize,

02:30Lincoln knows their efforts weren't wasted.

02:34We are going to be friends from now on

02:37because they have the same vision with us.

02:40So we are going to take each other's numbers.

02:44Then we are going to sell our projects,

02:48social media, posters and everything.

02:51We are hoping that Dance for Climate will move on.

02:56The dance competition is over,

02:58but today a group of ten volunteers with the Greening Kwanzana Project

03:02are turning to another form of pop culture

03:05and spraying graffiti to encourage people to reuse and recycle more

03:10and reach people who otherwise aren't familiar with these issues.

03:15Some people relate better to music, some people relate better to dance,

03:18some relate better to graffiti.

03:21So we have artists here,

03:23some of these artists had no clue whatsoever about what climate justice is.

03:28But now that we educated them,

03:30now they are actually using their art skills

03:34to actually draw messages that will communicate with other people.

03:39As attention from some few community members begins to build,

03:43the reactions are a mix of this creative form of environmental advocacy.

03:51If people drive by, for example,

03:53the painted messages will discourage them from throwing trash out the window.

03:58I hope they continue with this in different communities.

04:04Not everyone gets what they are trying to say with the graffiti

04:07and some might even ignore it, but others learn something from it.

04:17Here too, some more Greening Kwanzana volunteers

04:20are taking climate action into their own hands.

04:26Planting new trees where old ones were cut down.

04:29They aim to plant around 5,000 new trees by 2025.

04:38With this, the activists are reclaiming a public space

04:41and turning it back to a recreational area

04:44that can be used and enjoyed by locals.

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