It is a conversation that has trended globally with a lot of environmental destruction experienced all over, it has even become the main area of focus where many countries are going green keeping away from fossil fuel projects which are the major contributing factor to climate change destruction.
In most cases, women tend to be most affected as a result of developing projects, for instance when the government issued compensation to the first beneficiaries of the lapsset project along the kililana corridor in Lamu county, the majority were men who were compensated; who later left their families, some married second and third wives, leaving their first families living in struggles to meet ends need, since the majority of women were left with nothing when the government compensated farmers who owned land at Kililana while women were the caretakers and depended on it for survival by doing some small-scale farming businesses. Questions may arise, were the women not compensated? the answer is no since men-owned lands and women looked after the properties by then. The bottom of it all is that women are the most affected when it comes to developing projects coming to Lamu.
Through our community engagement in Lamu, we took it to Matondoni, Mokowe, and Amu Island to educate them on the effects of climate change, the contributing factor which is the proposed Lamu coal plant, Oil and Gas refinery which revolves around the lapsset project, and the Lamu port itself which has caused a stir by destructing the fishing grounds to indigenous fishermen in Lamu.
It is believed that when you educate a woman, you have educated the entire community, and bringing women together for this cause is a major milestone, through support from Feminist Review trust, the organization held forums in Amu town, Matondoni, and Mokowe to the mainland side of Lamu, to educate communities on the negative impacts of developing projects coming to Lamu, the proposed coal power plant, we carried out discussions around oil and gas refinery and the newly constructed Lamu Port along the Kililana sea shores which has negatively impacted the lives of common citizens in Lamu, and most women who are left with huge burdens to look after their children, and are living below the poverty line.
“Our lives and income are all 90% dependent on the sea, however, the LAPSSET mega project came and distracted everything, they dug the sea and kept our husbands off the sea where they were getting plenty of fish to cater for their day-to-day expenses and beyond” this statement came from one of the attendees of the forum held at Matondoni village.
” We want a dialogue with the government and be included in every step of the process, we want to be apart of the discussions around fighting climate change crisis and advocate for just climate actions” said one of the participants during a community forum in Amu town
Statistics from the fisheries department as of 2016 state that tonnes of fish used to be exported out of Lamu, which used to handsomely pay them back, but not anymore since a lot of destruction has been made causing some types of fish to go extinct as a result of climate change crisis.