Sample Proposal on Raising Awareness and
Inspiring Youth on Climate Change
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Interested in the topics of youth, environment or climate change? Need to assist youngsters with
getting their voices found out about what is important to them? Need to get inventive? Is your
intention to bring issues to light among youth about climate or Climate Change? Climate change
is a challenge that needs to be addressed now to reduce the risk it poses to the youth of today and
generations unborn.
This sample proposal has been developed with a goal to engage the energy, enthusiasm and
values of youth on issues related to infrastructural development such as roads, drains, sewage,
dams, national parks to from personal lifestyles and to work with their communities, the private
sector and government to make significant inroads on reducing emissions and to provide young
people and youth with information on climate change and what they can do about it using the
linkages between road transport, tree planting and sanitation as major components; providing the
opportunities to work on concrete projects to make a difference, and recognition and rewards for
their work towards emissions reduction.
The proposition methodology is to bring issues to light among youngsters and youth about
environmental change, its causes and expected effects, and supporter on how people can manage
inspiring youth to make moves inside their networks to diminish outflows utilizing the linkages
between street transport, tree planting and disinfection.
Introduction of the Project
Human development is about people. It is about expanding people’s real choices and the
substantive freedoms – the capabilities – that enable them to lead lives they value. Choice and
freedom in human development mean something more than the absence of restraints. People
whose lives are blighted by poverty, ill-health or illiteracy are not in any meaningful sense free
to lead lives that they value.
Climate change has become one of the defining forces shaping prospects for development in the
21st Century. Ghana is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate which entered into force 16
February 2005 and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was ratified
by Ghana’s Parliament on 26 November 2002. Although Ghana has committed itself to meeting
its obligations under the Convention and the Protocol for achieving stabilization of greenhouse
gas emission, and climate change will continue to have huge and lasting impacts on its
ecosystems and productivity, its climate change responses are very limited. The cost of taking
preventive action now is much lower than paying the price later. The Kyoto Protocol provide
avenues under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) which holds great potential to
promote technology development and transfer and can assist Ghana in attracting foreign direct
investment in the energy, transport, waste management, industry, land usage and management,
and forestry sectors where there are clear potential to mitigate climate change by reducing
greenhouse gas emissions.
The formal and informal sectors of Ghana’s economy are strongly based on natural resources:
agriculture, pastoralism, logging, road construction, eco-tourism, mining amongst others.
Climatic variations that alter the viability of these activities, for better or for worse, have very
high leverage on the economy. Population and development pressures continue to worsen the
exploitation of Ghana’s land-cover. These pressures coupled with climate change will negatively
impact on the ecosystems will affect the distribution and productivity of plant and animal
species, water supply, fuel-wood, among others. Climate change will however impact greatly on
women and children who constitute the majority of the poor and depend mostly on natural
resources for their livelihoods (like agriculture) that are susceptible to climate change. Natural
resources productivity and biodiversity may even be irreversibly lost due to climate change.
The declines in agricultural productivity and food insecurity as a result of declining soil fertility
due to changes in rainfall pattern and water stresses have grave consequences on Ghana’s
development. Inland fisheries and fish farming systems are predominantly along riverbanks and
as a result of water stress will suffer during intense rainfall periods which result in floods and
during episodes of drought and habitat destruction.
Human health will be adversely affected by projected climate change. Changing weather patterns
and raising temperature will escalate the pressure on our limited medical facilities and staff to
cope with the increased demand. This will result from higher numbers of patients suffering from
malaria, meningitis (CSM) and other water and air-borne diseases. Persistent droughts and
flooding in the face of our inadequate sanitary infrastructure will result in frequent of epidemics
of enteric diseases such as cholera and dysentery. These will lead to loss of manpower and
decreased productivity whiles automatically increasing healthcare burden which is likely to
derail the infant National Health Insurance Scheme.
Substantive portions of Ghana government’s investment go into provision of basic infrastructure
for development such as roads, bridges, railways, dams, housing. The impact of climate change
on these infrastructure particularly roads, bridges, historical buildings serving as tourist
sites/attractions due to exposure to damaging flooding, deep potholes, erosion, excessive heat
and other extreme events are very devastating. The exacerbation of desertification by changes in
rainfall and intensified land use poses a serious threat to land resources. The reservoir storage of
the xxxx dam shows high sensitivity to variations in runoff and periods of drought as evidenced
by critically low levels, threatening hydropower generation and industrial activity, which
endangers Government’s effort in ensuring growth through the private sector.
The recent flood that hit the Northern, Upper East, Upper West and Western Regions of Ghana
in YYYY revealed the nations vulnerability. The following were the statistics that were recorded
by the Ministry of Interior with regards to the flood;
Ghana’s environmental and climate change challenge profile will be in a more dangerous
position in the coming decades. This is due to consistent human activities such as littering with
non-biodegradability plastic waste which leads to depletion of soil fertility, check gutters and
drains and results in flooding of home, and roads causing deep potholes formation and erosion;
huge traffic congestion which leads to high consumption of fuel and large volumes of CO2
emission; rampant bush fires and illegal felling of trees, expanding surface mining and quarries
which depletes our greenly surrounding, reduces CO2 uptake, increases temperature and destroys
water bodies; increase in industrial activities with huge energy demands; and the discovery of oil
which will lead to the drilling of more wells and establishment of more oil refineries. Climate
change will have serious permanent damaging effects on Ghana, and it is critical to consider
climate change as a development issue. Integrating environmental and climate change concerns
into Ghana’s development agenda is critical in order to ensure the long-term achievement of
development goals, in particular the Ghana Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS) and
Millennium Development Goals.
Climate change is a challenge that needs to be addressed now to reduce the risk it poses to the
youth of today and generations unborn. Unfortunately Ghana as a country is not doing much to
halt the continuous effects of climate change. Most adult Ghanaians are preoccupied with day to
day issues. The current generation of this country stands directly in harm’s way and they have
the least resources to cope. This has compelled many young people to be primarily concerned
with, even overwhelmed by, their education, health, future employment and financial situations
which look very blurred.
ABC Foundation therefore through this project seeks to develop a youth-focused Public
Education and Outreach (PEO) strategy on climate change. The strategy seek to provide young
Ghanaians understanding in the issues and support them with the knowledge, stimulus, and, most
importantly, the opportunity to work together towards emissions reductions. The strategy will be
piloted in the Greater Accra Region within 2009 and 2011 outcomes replicated in other regions
of the country in three (3) phases within a period of ten (10) years (2011 – 2021). It will also be
used by the member organizations of Ghana National Youth on Climate Change to champion the
issues.
ABC Foundation believes that young people hold the keys to Ghana’s climate change challenges
and education is the lead stream in their engagement on climate change actions. Young people
through action-oriented projects will be engaged in environmental policy development advocacy
while incorporating them in capacity building to ensure sustainability of in-and-out of school
operations. There is an enormous gap between action and gratification, or tangible results on
climate change. While youth may not see an immediate reduction and corresponding
environmental response/reparation, the strategy will provide other ways to reward their actions.
Young people will be recognized, respected and rewarded for their contributions and
accomplishments. In particular, value will be attached to their volunteer work, in order to engage
youth at the community level.
Flexible and multiple sub-projects approach that is more responsive both to the diversity of youth
and diversity of funding and other available resources will be employed. The youth will be
involved in all processes and stages of implementing and expanding the strategy; design,
planning and delivery of an outreach campaign, adverts, and other aspects of this strategy. They
will know where their input will go and how it will make a difference (the kind of decisions or
impacts they can affect, realistic timelines for change, and what they can expect to see).
Opportunities will be created for young people and adults to work together. Campaigns will be
easy, accessible and convenient for youth to participate. Sub-projects will encourage interaction,
information and knowledge sharing, and participation among the community as a whole.
Businesses and industry will be approached to be part of the solution to demonstrate needed
integration between the economy and the environment.
Goal of the Project
The goal is to engage the energy, enthusiasm and values of youth on issues related to
infrastructural development such as roads, drains, sewage, dams, national parks to from personal
lifestyles and to work with their communities, the private sector and government to make
significant inroads on reducing emissions.
Broad Objective of the Project
The broad objective is to provide young people and youth with information on climate change
and what they can do about it using the linkages between road transport, tree planting and
sanitation as major components; providing the opportunities to work on concrete projects to
make a difference, and recognition and rewards for their work towards emissions reduction.
Specific Objectives of the Project
o To facilitate a concept of environmental citizenship among Ghanaian youth,
through the integration of knowledge, sense of responsibility and successful
action to mitigate climate change impact.
o To create and strengthen our young leaders, both to learn from them now and to
prepare them to become tomorrow’s decision makers.
o To reinforce and reward existing environmentally friendly lifestyles among youth,
thereby delaying or reducing the adoption of greenhouse gas emitting practices
among Ghanaians.
o To strengthen and build upon existing institutions and services for young
Ghanaians, both to recognize and reward work already being done, to support new
work within those institutions, to avoid duplication, and to avoid drawing funding
away from current activities.
o To integrate Ghanaian youth efforts into the global effort to gain global
recognition and support.
Project Strategy
The project focuses on two components in this strategy:
o Raising awareness among young people and youth about climate change, its
causes and potential impacts, and advocate on what individuals can do to reduce
emissions using the linkages between road transport, tree planting and sanitation
as major components.
o Motivating youth to take actions within their communities to reduce emissions
and to encourage others in their lives (peers, families, communities) to reduce
emissions using the linkages between road transport, tree planting and sanitation.
The project focuses of the following campaign strategy and issues
o Awareness Creation – which intersects with the broader information, awareness
and advocacy campaigns on the issues below;
Advocate for recycle of at least 25% of the volume of plastic waste which
chock gutters and drains and cause flooding, create potholes, erosion and
destroy roads in the country. This also aims to improve on the sanitation
and environmental degradation situation in the country.
Call for improvement in the road transportation system and the needed
support for alternative transportation methods to the car culture in the
country to reduce the heavy traffic congestion, high consumption of fuel,
waste of time and the huge CO2 emission.
Contribute to the enhancement of energy efficiency and conservation
through the use of energy saving bulbs, reducing wastage of electricity and
other domestic fuels.
Promote nature conservation and greenly environment through positive
connections of the youth with the environment by planting trees along
selected roads, within selected parks and along some rivers and water
bodies personal.
o Mainstream media campaigns, both to profile and reward participants, and to
catalyze them to take notice of the problem and look for more information and
ways to become engaged.
o Mainstream special promotions and events, emphasizing novelty and
entertainment.
Project Implementation Structure / Strategy
The project implementation structure /strategy will be in two (2) phases.
Phase I
Phase I will be within YYYY and YYYY, and is the general advocacy phase and will be in five
(5) parts:
o Expansion of Green-Life Clubs in schools from the Basic to Senior High level to
provide;
o Capacity building for youth groups
o Information and awareness campaigns
o Community actions
o Evaluation of the phase
Phase II
Phase II will be for specific advocacy on ensuring protection, long duration and safety on a
specific adopted road. Trees will be planted and maintained along the full stretch of the road by
groups of students and youth clubs within the communities along the road. The trees and greens
along the road will be evaluated and awards given to groups whose portions are well maintained.
Capacity Building Strategy
The strategy is to reinforce youth’s current awareness of environmental matters such as littering
of gutters and drains with plastic waste, cutting down trees indiscriminately, bush burning, road
traffic congestion and huge CO2 emission rather than focusing just on climate change. It will
highlight individual causes and effects on climate change, illustrating its local, national and
global dimensions and impacts and how they affect the economy and our way of life. The
strategy is to encourage widespread dissemination of information on environmental issues to
continue awareness raising and sharing of values and viewpoints of the youth. It will connect the
need to mitigate or adapt to climate change to ensure employment opportunities and show how
an environmentally-friendly lifestyle improves on health, and make the world a better place at
the same time. It will put national climate change strategy into global context to build on the
global perspectives and concerns of youth, but connect the strategy back to the community and
how they affect them personally.
The strategy will focus on events designing and implementation of activities that can involve and
allows more youth to participate in, but for shorter periods of time – requiring less time
commitment. Empowering them on means to form and enhance alliances and partnerships
between themselves and governments, private sector, educational system, NGO’s, churches,
sports groups. This will include, especially, how to develop collaboration, communication and
coordination between them and stakeholders who deal with similar issues.
Communications, Social Marketing and Engagement Strategies
The strategy focuses on the youth as leaders and influencers on adults and on their peers, and as
participants working for change within their communities and country. This is an engagement
strategy rather than a marketing strategy. The goal of communications and social marketing
strategies is to bring about change from diverse ideas and behavior or adoption of new ideas and
behavior. It is generally accepted that these strategies are most effective when media and
information campaigns are combined with personal interventions with the target group. The
strategy therefore looked carefully at a model of engagement: how to turn knowledge into action,
how small individual actions can be aggregated for greater benefit; and how to ensure that the
actions will have longer term benefits for the community, the country and the planet.
Mobilization Strategy for Phase I (Media-Oriented & Advocacy Sub-Projects
The strategy is to mobilize the youth (membership of the Green-Life Clubs) and stakeholders
around four (4) major media-oriented and advocacy sub-projects. The strategy includes focusing
sub-project concepts on the little things the youth can do to have an impact on climate change.
The sub-projects will help the youth to identify good environmental/climate change practices,
what works and what doesn’t work, and reward what does – through prizes, press releases,
internet communications, and so forth. The sub-projects will provide incentives and rewards for
youth who are making an impact in their community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because
it reinforces their positive behavior. Media attention is given to the concepts to broadcast their
inspiring stories of successes which are important to let the youth know that they are working as
a team with other peers and with older Ghanaians, not only as individuals.
Plastic Waste Audit Campaign (PWAC) for recycle of plastic waste
Gutters and drains across the country are chocked with plastic wastes, causing damaging floods
which cause destruction to home, properties and infrastructure such as roads with potholes and
erosion. The members of the Green-Life Clubs will mobilize plastic waste generated in their
homes within a one week period and bring them to school. These plastic wastes will be collected
from the schools and put into a single pool. The membership will also undertake signature
collection campaign within their schools to support the demand greater commitment and political
will towards recycling at least 25% of plastic wastes produced in the country. The collected
plastic wastes and signatures will be presented by a youth delegation to the Ministers of
Environment, Local Government and Education, and the Director of the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) at a campaign launch. Representatives of other relevant stakeholders
such Embassies, NGOs, religious and traditional bodies will be invited. The collected plastic
waste will be given to companies involved in recycling. Call will be made to the general public
not to be throwing plastic waste unto roads and streets.
Energy Audit and Efficiency Enhancement Campaign
Membership of the Green-Life Clubs will undertake one-months community outreach which will
educated both family and community members on energy usage and efficiency and encourage
them to change their ‘onion’ bulbs to energy saving bulbs. Prizes will be given to each member
who will present the cases of an energy saving bulb and an onion’ bulb as evidence of work done
for educational and promotional materials such as pencils, pens, rulers, exercise books and T-
shirts; the grater the number of evidence the grater the prize. Collected cases and ‘onion’ bulbs
will be presented to the Minister of Energy and personnel from Energy Commission, Energy
Foundation and Electricity Corporation of Ghana for destruction in media event.
Clean-up the Community Campaign (CCC)
Membership of the Green-Life Clubs in each of the nine (9) Metropolis, Municipality and
District in the Greater Accra Region will undertake joint clean-up exercise and clean the drains
and gutters along selected streets and roads within their community. The clean-up exercise will
be done with the collaboration of their respective Assemblies, and other stakeholder institutions
and organizations such as youth groups, religious groups, traditional councils, security personnel
within the locality.
Road Transport Improvement and Environmental Conservation Campaign (RTI&ECC)
There is increasing number of cars on our roads causing huge traffic congestion, full
consumption and polluting the air with CO2. The membership of the Green-Life Clubs
numbering over one thousand (1,000) will undertake a road show campaign with a convoy of
over twenty (20) big buses to draw attention to increasing stress on our roads and its
environmental and economic cost. The campaign will call for effective bus transportation
services as alternative to the car culture. The convoy will start from the Kwame Nkrumah Circle
to the xxx Dam proceed to the xxxx Park in the Central Region. The road campaign will
highlight the adverse impact of climate change on biodiversity and demand greater commitment
from all stakeholders. Participants with the collaboration of managers will also plant trees along
portions of the road, the banks of the xxxx Dam and also at the xxxx Park. Representatives of
stakeholder institutions and bodies, celebrities and the Media will be invited for their
participation in the road show.
The road show mainstreams media campaigns and raises the needed awareness whiles rewarding
the youth, providing them the opportunity to take notice of the problem and look for more
information and ways to become engaged. It is also a special promotional event that emphasizes
novelty and entertainment as members who participated in the other campaign actives will
rewarded.
Project Evaluation
The strategy has an impact evaluation system in place to learn the effect of the strategy on youth,
and to provide means by which youth can provide feedback and input. A good baseline data will
be established at the beginning of this strategy and evaluation of increased levels of knowledge,
awareness and action at the end of the strategy. It is important to reflect that early evaluation may
miss some of the long term benefits on youth participation efforts is an ongoing and
developmental process. While recognizing that concrete outcomes take time, it is also difficult to
attribute attitude and behavior changes solely to such campaigns when other extraneous factors
can also be strong influences on behaviors and attitudes.
Evaluation Criteria
o The social marketing campaigns will be evaluated for creating a positive and
significant impact according to the following criteria:
Awareness – A broad awareness of the campaign, its theme and basic
messages among youth
Attitudes – A general acceptance of the campaign messages among youth
Behavioral intentions – Discernable differences in intended behaviors the
youth exposed to the campaign than that were not exposed to the
campaign
Interpersonal communications –Demonstrated increased willingness and
commitment to disseminating information on the issues to others among
youth as exposed to the campaign
Current use – Discernable differences in behaviors that can be currently
changed, such as taking the bus, carpooling, using appliances efficiently
and other personal contributions
Trends – A development of general trends in attitudes and behaviors,
especially among the targeted audience
Use of Campaigns as Models – Adoption of strategies or specific projects
by groups not included in the strategy, or by groups wanting to adapt
strategies or specific projects for campaigns on different issues and topics
and requests for expertise or consultancies
Testing of indicators would be completed by the following qualitative and quantitative
methods:
o Tracking surveys for individual projects
o Tracking surveys for the strategy
o Tracking surveys for youth to measure their increased awareness and knowledge
of climate change issues before the campaign, mid-way and upon completion.
o Formal and informal discussions with young people and adults, using focus
groups, consultations, conferences, throughout the time frame of the strategy.
Log Frame
Plan of Action
