- 7 weeks ago
Ugandan schools are showing pupils that conservation is personal by teaching them about clan totems - plants or animals that are taboo to kill or eat. Plus: Upcycled art that rewires thinking about e-waste.
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00:05see this bracelet it's more than jewelry it is my totem a red garnet crystal bracelet is often
00:13worn for its spiritual and symbolic benefits it is believed to promote strength passion courage
00:20and protection now wearing it as a bracelet may serve as a spiritual reminder to stay grounded
00:28confident and resilient well chris do you have one of those not one i can show you now malaba but
00:37here
00:38in nigeria tatum traditions exist too in some communities animals and even plants can be linked
00:45to a family or clan and harming them is a taboo which actually raises an interesting question
00:52can an old tradition also help protect nature today
01:02this is a real grasshopper and this is gift look how beautiful it is and it's a nice insect
01:11the grasshopper is gift's totem in uganda tradition she belongs to the nsenene or grasshopper clan
01:24at school pupils learn about their clans and totems today isaiah is in the spotlight
01:31what is your island my name is isaiah troymutomba isaiah troymutomba are you a m lucht possessions
02:02Here, sister means a fellow clan member, not a biological sibling.
02:07The school says its pupils represent almost all of Buganda's clans.
02:14Names can offer a clue to a person's clan.
02:17Each have traditional sets of names and a totem, often an animal or plant.
02:25We encourage children to look out for their friends and also encourage them to make sure
02:33that they conserve their totems because that is the smallest that they can do.
02:40They don't need to look at a bigger or a wider range of species.
02:46They only look at a small one.
02:47But if each of us is looking at one piece of species, for example, we shall conserve the
02:53whole race of animals.
02:57Traditionally, clan members are not allowed to eat or harm their totem, and they are expected
03:02to protect it.
03:04You don't like poachers?
03:05Yes.
03:06Why don't you like poachers?
03:08They kill nyonyinyanges.
03:10Oh yeah, they can kill nyonyinyanges.
03:13My name is Chuanca Donald, and I am from the Ampologoma clan.
03:17We preserve the lions to avoid the poachers from killing them.
03:24Uganda's primary schools cover clans and totems.
03:28Here in Uganda, pupils learn about their kingdom's own clan system.
03:32The clan system is traditionally traced to Uganda's founding in the late 14th century,
03:38which later became a dominant power in Eastern Africa.
03:42Today, it's part of Uganda.
03:45The capital Kampala is also a seat of the Buganda Kingdom.
03:49There, the Royal Mile connects the king's palace with the kingdom's parliament.
03:58Since 2017, a growing collection of sculptures represents Buganda's clans and their totems
04:04along the Royal Mile.
04:06Today, pupils of Gombe Junior School are on an excursion.
04:10They are out to see their totems and take pictures with them.
04:16And Isaiah Mutumba is quick to find his totem.
04:23I'm glad to see this.
04:25It's a piece of work made by my master.
04:28It reminds me of my totem.
04:31It's even an air potato.
04:35And these are exchange oils and nutrients.
04:37I'm proud to see this. It symbolizes my clan.
04:40For gift, the search is over in one hope.
04:44She proudly shows it to her friends.
04:49Some of these totems need all the allies they can get.
04:52Several of them are threatened with extinction.
04:55Black Rhino and the African forest elephant are critically endangered.
05:00The crowned crane and the pangolin are among the endangered species.
05:05The main reasons for their plight are shrinking habitats and the ongoing threat of poaching.
05:13Augustine Mutumba chairs Buganda's clans of clan heads.
05:17He believes the sculptures can strengthen the totem tradition and its role in conservation.
05:25I think the clan members, if they assist the father, come up with a protection mode.
05:33And they are helped by technical people, scientists, and governments come up.
05:40I think it will be a good job of helping to preserve this.
05:45Isaiah does not just admire his totem. He grows it.
05:49This is my totem.
05:51It has already started bringing its fruits out.
05:57He learned how to grow air potatoes in his garden from his father.
06:01Today, he's planting another one.
06:06There are many of them around here.
06:10We have a number of them in this garden.
06:13But you see, I'm going to make them more in our environment by planting another one.
06:19So that we can see many air potatoes in our environment.
06:27Isaiah's teachers hope more pupils will follow his lead and make their own contribution.
06:33That's why they regularly visit the Royal Mile to keep their traditions alive and protect endangered species.
06:40For Isaiah, that lesson has already taken root.
06:46It was indeed a great experience for me to film this story.
06:51Just because it brought me into contact with young and old people who are proud of defending their totems and
06:59clans.
07:00One of the things that caught my attention, it is the bond that is in this kind of system.
07:05One of the things is that the moment you just introduce yourself or greet somebody, it immediately identifies you and
07:11says,
07:12Oh, you're my brother. You're my sister.
07:14Or you belong to a certain clan, which means you are defending a certain piece of earth.
07:20And another thing that caught my attention is that this kind of clan system is not only in central Uganda
07:27here, but it cuts across to other tribes in like in Western Uganda, where you see them saying, Oh, you
07:33also belong to my clan.
07:34That means you are protecting or defending biodiversity in another way.
07:41And something that really caught my attention is that when somebody comes to your home, before he eats, he will
07:48ask, What have you prepared?
07:50That means he's careful about what he consumes. He doesn't want to eat his totem. He wants it conserved.
07:58Dream big enough, and even the scorded clothes can carry African style and heritage into new spaces, including Europe's fashion
08:07scene.
08:08Je suis Mam Khadibadji. Je suis Sénégalaise qui vit actuellement à Berlin. Je suis designer durable. Je donne vie à
08:19des habits ramassés dans la rue.
08:22Her signature style is the fusion of Berlin streetwear and Sénégalaise heritage.
08:29Bienvenue dans mon atelier. Mon univers.
08:35She's using what's called Ndiahas. It means combining different colors from different textiles.
08:45Artists like DJ Nomi, who plays Afrobeat music on major stages around the world, are wearing her outfits.
08:55Je les loue pour les artistes, chanteuses, influenceuses, qui les présentent sur un diner de gala ou bien sur un
09:04podium de musique.
09:05Roni, je peux citer son nom. Roni Goliath, qui a porté une de mes outfits sur Lola Polosa l'année
09:13dernière.
09:15Kingsley, qui a porté mes outfits, je peux dire même trois fois sur trois scènes différents.
09:22Damidas, la même chose. DJ Nomi, la même chose.
09:25Ils mettent à leur façon, à leur manière. C'est win-win.
09:33Tastes like her fashion and buy it right away.
09:36But mom wants her fashion not only to be popular among African artists,
09:41but also among the people in her new home, Germany.
09:46She showed her line at the latest Berlin Fashion Week in July 2026.
09:52Few could tell that her dresses were made from secondhand goods.
09:56But for mom Hadibachi, it's an important part of her work.
10:02Ça a marché. Les gens portent et ils ne savent pas que voilà quoi.
10:06Ça, c'est ramassé.
10:13Cette tenue est composée de jeans recyclés, de différentes jeans d'ailleurs,
10:19avec différentes couleurs pour avoir le contraste.
10:22Walt and Bertrand, Resnio à Educatивается An çave.
10:23While working in Senegal's fashion industry,
10:26she met her future husband,
10:28a German who was also working in the field.
10:31She moved to Berlin in 2017,
10:34and continued working from home.
10:37But balancing her craft with a young child was challenging.
10:42Renting a studio was financially impossible at first.
10:45until Sarah Diaz-Rodriguez and Essie Gromb of the Berlin Textile Co-op offered her support.
10:53Their affordable co-working space gives young designers access to professional sewing,
11:00knitting and weaving equipment.
11:02Clothing is part of our culture, our identity.
11:06And the globalization kind of like give us this very, let's say, plain perspective of fashion.
11:17And I think we have to reclaim our cultural heritage, where we're from, our traditions,
11:27especially if we think about textiles, weaving traditions.
11:31And designers like MAME show that it's possible to transform or redefine the idea of textile waste
11:41and, like, transform these materials into something valuable.
11:48Sarah's help has also been valuable for acquiring funding for MAM's projects
11:54because, up to now, she does not make a profit.
11:57But she hopes increasing her content on social media will help her get more attention and customers.
12:05I definitely think that people recognize her art throughout, yeah, many others.
12:14And I definitely see, and others also see, her vision coming true
12:24and also her identity, like, the identity of her clothes.
12:31That's what struck Analeah Fisher, too, who is MAM's assistant.
12:36They met a few months ago at the co-op, as Analeah wants to learn from MAM
12:42and become a fashion designer as well.
12:46Oftentimes, when we go to fashion shows, her clothes kind of stand out the most
12:50because they're so bright and so colorful and so fun and very unique, I would say.
12:57The only one, it can be.
13:01MAM hadibaji is still building her brand, one recycled piece at a time.
13:07Her next stop is the Renewable Elecon's fashion show in Cologne,
13:13another step in her journey to prove that fashion's future can be both sustainable and rooted in tradition.
13:30They're influencers, mobilizers, and climate defenders.
13:34They're using the power of social media to rally a generation of young Africans to take climate action.
13:41Mitrifena Muthoni, Lydia Wanja, and Elizabeth Wathuti,
13:44three young Kenyan women reshaping what environmental leadership looks like today.
13:49The digital communities stretch far beyond their villages and cities, inspiring thousands.
13:57With over 180,000 followers on Instagram,
14:00Mitrifena Muthoni might just be one of the world's famous tree huggers.
14:04In 2025, she made history, 72 hours hugging a tree without food or water,
14:10a Guinness World Record and a powerful symbolic protest
14:13demanding stronger protection of Kenya's forests.
14:17Tree hugging is therapeutic.
14:20So I was just creating awareness about the importance of tree hugging on our mental health.
14:25And during that time, January, February last year,
14:28we had a lot of mental health crisis reports across the world.
14:33And I was thinking this is a time to inspire people
14:36and to ask them to come back to nature for healing.
14:39Climate anxiety is widespread among young people.
14:42Nearly 60 percent of youth aged 16 to 25 reported feeling very or extremely worried about climate change
14:49in a survey conducted by the medical journal The Lancet.
14:52Climate-related PTSD is also increasing as extreme weather intensifies.
15:04Trufena, who's also a musician, has lived through her own mental health journey.
15:08She believes in the healing power of nature and the importance of reserving it for future generations.
15:13Her record-breaking hug became a global moment that inspired millions.
15:17When I was hugging the tree at that moment, a lot of people planted trees.
15:22Yeah, people had already created events and they were really planting trees
15:26and most importantly the indigenous trees at that same moment.
15:30So it was an awakening.
15:32Her message traveled all the way to the Kenyan statehouse.
15:36President William Ruto appointed her ambassador for the national plan to plant 15 billion trees by 2032.
15:45While Trufena mobilizes on the ground, gender and climate justice advocate Lydia Wanja breaks barriers online.
15:52As a UNESCO youth delegate, she represented young African women and girls at COP30 in Brazil
15:58and at the 7th United Nations Environment Assembly in Kenya.
16:02But Lydia knows most African youth don't have access to these restricted spaces,
16:07so she makes them accessible for everyone on social media.
16:10It's part of her daily life with potential to become a powerful public tool.
16:18Social media transits geographical barriers.
16:22By utilizing the social media, I am able to tell them that despite you not being physically present here,
16:29you're up to date with what's happening and your voice is also heard.
16:33So social media becomes a place for me even to engage with a broader audience that was not here physically
16:39present.
16:39For Kenya's fast-growing young population, social media is becoming a crucial space for learning and connecting.
16:47Environmental activist Elizabeth Wathuti is leveraging its power.
16:52When I started my organization, I remember I was definitely very new on social media,
16:58but I chose to capitalize on my social media to purely share about environment and climate change issues.
17:04And I just would share because I believe that as much as we are making a difference on the ground,
17:10somebody somewhere could also be inspired by the work that we do.
17:13Among the work Elizabeth shares online is a green generation initiative, which brings nature directly into classrooms.
17:20She works with school children in rural communities to create learning spaces,
17:25planting fruit trees orchids and food gardens, like this one in the Tree Site Special School in Nairobi.
17:31As these social media activists gain visibility, the Kenyan government is also noticing them.
17:39Social media influences are really critical.
17:42They are, I can say, a great pillar when it comes to climate action,
17:46ensuring that there is awareness, creating public awareness, community awareness,
17:53and also changing the behavior of Kenyans and ultimately improving impact and outcomes on the ground.
18:01With help from government and civil society, online influence is becoming an effective force.
18:07Elizabeth Wathuti experienced that reach firsthand in 2022, when one of her videos went viral.
18:14I think my most impactful post, which is also my most impactful point in time of my journey as an
18:23environmentalist,
18:24was a speech that I delivered at COP26 in Glasgow, which was in front of 119 presidents.
18:32And this is a speech that I named Open Your Hearts.
18:37My story will only move you if you can open up your heart.
18:42I need to tell you what is happening in my home country.
18:48Right now, as we sit comfortably here in this conference center in Glasgow,
18:54over two million of my fellow Kenyans are facing climate-related starvation.
19:01Last year, Elizabeth was among Time magazine's 100 most influential climate leaders.
19:07From hashtags to hard action, Kenya's environmental influences are helping turn digital voices into real change.
19:17A little salt on your rice can enhance its flavor.
19:22But salt in fields where that rice grows, hmm, now that's a little different.
19:29In Gambia, salt water is creeping into farmlands, damaging crops and threatening farmers' livelihoods.
19:38But why is this happening? And what can they do about it?
19:42Well, let's find out.
19:44Rice farmer Nyanajala still can't quite believe it.
19:48So she does a simple test.
19:50And sure enough, the Gambia river water tastes salty.
20:07The village of Choya, in Gambia's Central River region, sits some 200 kilometers upriver from the Atlantic.
20:15Yet even here, the fields closest to the river are turning salty.
20:22Climate change is one cause.
20:25Rising seas push salt water further up the Gambia river,
20:29while weaker rainy seasons let it reach even further, floating the fields with salt.
20:35So harvests are shrinking,
20:37a problem now spreading to rice-growing communities all along the Gambia river.
20:42Most of the land right now is all infested with salt.
20:46The salt water is coming in.
20:48And it's coming in rapidly.
20:50You know, the fields are reduced.
20:52Sometimes the rice will go up to near maturity stage.
20:55And then everything just collapses.
20:58The Gambia is one of the world's most rice-dependent nations.
21:02In 2023, rice supply reached over 300 kilograms per person.
21:08Ahead of Myanmar, Cambodia in Bangladesh, and Guinea-Bissau at almost 240.
21:19Yet the West African nation is increasingly unable to feed itself.
21:23In 2024, the Gambia produced only around 52,500 tons of rice,
21:30while importing almost five times as much, around 245,000 tons.
21:38The government wants to slash that dependence and reach rice self-sufficiency by 2030.
21:46But rice in salinity threatens that goal.
21:50A government and World Bank assessment estimates salt water has already cost more than 10,000 tons of rice since
21:572009.
21:59Experts say that it could endanger up to 30 percent of Gambia's current rice farming land in the next decade.
22:09In Troy and all the parts of the country, dykes, sluice gates, and canals are being developed
22:16to keep salt water out while storing valuable rainwater on agricultural land.
22:24In the community of Batendeng Kajara in the West Coast region,
22:28however, farmers are still waiting for these defenses to be built.
22:52These systems are central to the national rice strategy,
22:56which aims to bring climate resilient rice farming to
23:00an area equivalent to roughly 19 percent of the Gambia's total land area by 2030.
23:06Covering about 10 square kilometers,
23:09Jahalipacha is the largest rice growing area in the country.
23:13Here, the challenge is not only to make up for losses elsewhere,
23:17but also to increase productivity dramatically
23:20if the country wants to reach its ambitious production targets.
23:24In one spot, rice is still trashed by hand,
23:28thereby, a combined harvester cuts, thrushes, and cleanses it in one go.
23:35Mechanization is desperately needed,
23:37as it can boost rice production on land that remains fertile.
23:41We need to mechanize, right down from production to post-harvest or even to the market.
23:48All should be mechanized.
23:50We cannot keep relying on, you know, simple farm tools and so on.
23:54We need tractors to till the land.
23:57You know, we need power tillers.
23:58But mechanization cannot stop salt water from destroying fields elsewhere.
24:03Here is where science can make a difference.
24:07The Gambian agricultural scientist, Ibremen Jai,
24:10is looking for ways affected farmers can keep growing rice.
24:14He is testing to see which of Gambia's rice varieties best tolerate the salt.
24:21When we do that, it is going to have an impact on government policies,
24:25in the sense that they will be able to probably rely on this information to know that,
24:30OK, the most sensitive varieties must not be supplied to regions that have high salinity.
24:36And then the most sensitive varieties will be supplied to regions that are high in salt.
24:42With support from the African Development Bank,
24:46the Gambia is currently investing 40 million U.S. dollars in its rice sector.
24:51But government estimates suggest reaching its national targets could require nearly 330 million.
24:59For farmers like Nyanya, however, the immediate need is much simpler.
25:19Now you can find more stories about this amazing world and are placed in it by subscribing to the ECHO
25:28newsletter.
25:30And if you have any idea yourself, would love to hear your suggestions,
25:37just write to us at ECHO at DW.com.
25:40Thanks for watching and see you next week.