Oladotun Fadeyiye
Today, 15 January Earth Hour Nigeria has joined Earth Hour Global in launching the official Vídeo for its campaign for 2015 ‘Earth Hour 2015‘. The theme for this year campaign is “Change Climate Change” which focuses on the far reaching impact of an individual action at mitigating the effects of climate change on human existence globally. This year Earth Hour official ‘switch off’ is 28th March.
Earth Hour which is simply a gathering of the global community to show what one simple idea can achieve, and what one person’s actions can inspire by making efforts to reduce the carbon footprints, which has formed part of our daily activities here in this part of the world. From automobiles exhaust to generator set and other carbon emission appliances in our various homes. Nevertheless, Earth Hour is much, much more than a symbolic action of switching off lights for an hour; it’s a continuous movement driving real actions, big and small, that are changing the world we live in.
In retrospect, Nigeria began its Earth Hour Campaign in Abuja in 2010 with one green intellectual Oludotun Babayemi alongside famous Eco-activist and Blogger,Oladotun Fadeyiye. Evidently it must have occurred to them that Nigeria needed a change of attitude towards our immediate environment so as to curb the environmental degradation that had become a major challenge in some part of the country as well as unforeseeable effects of climate change. Realizing the need to change our future to one that would be sustainable because we can’t continue to use the equivalent of 1.5 of the planet’s natural resources to support life on Earth. And we can’t afford to ignore the critical environmental challenges we are facing today.
Against all odds, these duo took it as a matter of necessity joining Earth Hour Global and the rest of the world, putting Nigeria on the map as an environmental sustainability conscious nation.
Since then successive immeasurable success in Earth Hour Campaign in Nigeria has been recorded. Corporate organizations such as Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Transcorp Hilton, FCMB, WAZOBIA FM, NigeriaInfo, Raypower FM, Punch Newpaper, BluePrint Newspaper, Garki Gazette among others had extended their support to Earth Hour Nigeria Campaigns. This unwavering support indeed became the source of motivation for the Earth Hour Nigeria team to further the cause and envangelised the Earth Hour Campaign to Lagos and Portharcourt in 2011 and 2012 respectively, reaching out to over 3.2 million Nigerians through massive publicity, sensitization, advocacy and capacity building for the Nigerian youths.
By 2013, Earth Hour Nigeria gave its voice during the “Switch off” campaign to support the passing of the Climate Bill Change Bill which had been pending since 2010, due to delay Presidential Assent. Numerous participants across the country gave their signatures for speedy passage of this important part of environmental sustainability. The climate change Bill was eventually passed into law in Nigeria by late 2013.
Furthermore, ‘I Will If You Will’ platform that enjoyed more than 4 million interactions on YouTube was launched by Earth Hour in 2013. It was a mechanism to empower individuals and organisations to become the inspiration to their own communities by sharing what they’re willing to do to save the planet.
In a bid to fulfill its commitment of “‘I Will If You Will’ and to extend the campaign messages beyond one hour. By the last quarter of 2013, Earth Hour Nigeria embarked on what could be described as one of the most powerful and result oriented commitment to sustain our environment called “WALK TO MALI project” a commitment aimed at consistent advocacy on environmental sustainability. It was also targeted at enhancing the capacity of the people, empowering and improving the standard of living of people living in the ‘Forgotten’ communities across the West Coast of Africa. Countries like Niger, Togo, Chad, Ghana, Cote D’ivoire, Bukina Faso and Mali were visited by Earth Hour Nigeria/Walk to Mali team. Refugee camps and World Heritage Sites of these countries were visited for a successful completion.
Conclusive part of “Walk to Mali” activities was the commencement of Earth Hour 2014 campaign with sponsored by Connected Development (CODE) where the photo exhibition and documentary on Walk to Mali were shown to the participants across the country.
Now, there are more oppourtnities open for corporate organisations, public and private investments to be part of this biggest environmental sustainability campaign in the world, and to also work and identify with one of the biggest brands in the world ‘Earth Hour’.
Earth Hour Official 2015 is will be happening on 28th March.
Click here to view Earth Hour 2015 Official Video www.ehour.me/eh2015vid
Earth Hour 2014 Official Video is here
To register and be part of the great event and for more Enquiries contact:
Oladotun Fadeyiye– Deputy Country Director, 08034858005
E-mail:
oladotun@earthhourng.org
oladotun@connecteddevelopment.org
dotunroy@gmail.com