Children Can Do Great Things: How Tanzania’s 12-year-old Trade and Tourism Ambassador for the East African Community and Environmental Activist is Making World Leaders Listen on Climate Change By: Ringo Mowo
Tanzanian schoolgirl Sharon Ringo is just 12 years old, yet she meets with heads of state as a Trade and Tourism Ambassador and Environmental Activist and has set up her own foundation. The Sharon Ringo Foundation was created with the aim of planting two million new trees annually in East Africa, the foundation focuses on three thematics: Climate Action, Environmental Justice and Sustainable Tourism. Sharon is also a published author with two new books. The first titled, The Big Five , is already on the market and the other two, The Confidence I Learned From My Father, and A Call for Climate Action, are due to release. She could well be the secret weapon to empower the youth of Africa to make a stand on climate change. Just three weeks after landing from Egypt where she was attending COP27, she participated in the Africa Green Women Award Competition and won the competition.
Her spirit was boosted by winning an Africa Green Grant Award from Eleven Eleven Twelve Foundation. It's a startling level of achievement for someone not yet in her teens. Sharon believes everything is possible to all those who believe, and there is no time to wait when it comes to climate change.
“No one is safe as long as climate change is not reversed," Sharon warns.
"During my travels with my family, and sometimes with the foundation team, I could see how the environment was damaged by people cutting down trees and poor waste management. When you watch Television and social media you can see scary things. Droughts and floods are killing our people, nature, and animals all around. I visited the Manyara area (in northern Tanzania) in July last year where I saw children starving, and with no food or water. I also saw animals dying in the drought. It was a very scary situation for one to experience.
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