PEKALONGAN – Climate change is increasingly facing the people of Pekalongan City, including its youth. They now directly feel the impact of climate change such as tidal flooding due to rising sea levels. Therefore, it is important for the youth of Pekalongan City to have awareness and knowledge to deal with climate change.
For this reason, KEMITRAAN through the support of the Adaptation Fund together with the Pekalongan City Government (Pemkot) organized the Pekalongan City 2024 Youth Competition. This event is a series of creativity competitions with the theme of climate change. This competition includes creative content competitions, poster designs, written works, and stand up comedy. The event, which has been held for the third time, took place on August 2-7, 2024 in Pekalongan City and was attended by 155 participants.
The hope is that the issue of climate change, which seems complicated and distant from young people, can be grounded and become an everyday discussion. They were then invited to express their concerns and voice their concern for climate change in the Batik City through their works. In the poster design and creative content competitions, the problem of waste management and the use of single-use plastics were also mentioned. There was also a participant who used the tidal floods as stand-up comedy material because his campus was often flooded.
By making climate change a daily conversation, it is hoped that the awareness of Pekalongan’s youth towards the environment will increase. They are expected to become agents of change in their city to reduce the impact of climate change through concrete actions. These include reducing the use of single-use plastics, actively sorting and recycling waste, or even participating in mangrove planting to minimize the effects of tidal flooding.
This is in line with the objectives of the Adaptation Fund program run by KEMITRAAN in Pekalongan City, which is to increase community resilience to climate change. Therefore, the involvement of young people is very important to maintain the sustainability of adaptation efforts to climate change.
The same thing was conveyed by Pekalongan City Regional Secretary Nur Priyantomo in his speech at the peak of the Pekalongan City 2024 Youth Competition event at Santika Hotel, Pekalongan City, Wednesday (7/8/2024). He said the role of young people is vital in building resilience to climate change.
“This is clear evidence that we are empowering the younger generation to play an active role in dealing with climate change. I am sure with the knowledge you (young people) have, you can become agents of change for the community,” said Priyantomo.
He also hopes that the participants of the Pekalongan City 2024 Youth Competition can become an extension of the Pekalongan City Government in sensitizing citizens to protect the environment. Thus, Pekalongan City residents are able to transform into a climate change responsive society.
KEMITRAAN Program Director Eka Melisa said that her party continues to be committed to supporting Pekalongan City in adapting to climate change. Therefore, KEMITRAAN always involves the Pekalongan City Government and the community in every climate resilience action.
“All of you are winners because you have dared to express your creativity in helping to voice the importance of handling climate change,” Eka said.
For information, the Adaptation Fund program in Pekalongan City has been running since 2021. Along the way, KEMITRAAN and the Pekalongan City Government have made a number of efforts to address climate change such as planting mangroves to reduce the risk of rising sea levels. KEMITRAAN has also helped procure urban farming facilities and systems for farmers who lost their land due to tidal flooding.
In addition, in the Adaptation Fund program in Pekalongan City, KEMITRAAN also actively involves the community. In 8 urban villages affected by tidal floods, KEMITRAAN involves its citizens to carry out climate change adaptation programs such as mangrove planting and urban farming. KEMITRAAN also actively involves the youth of Pekalongan City in climate resilience actions to build awareness of protecting the environment.
ABOUT THE PARTNERSHIP FOR GOVERNANCE REFORM (KEMITRAAN)
For two decades KEMITRAAN has worked to promote the principles of good and transparent governance in government, society and business in line with the principles of anti-corruption, human rights and natural sustainability.
KEMITRAAN builds close networks with international institutions, national governments and grassroots movements, to collaborate strategically. KEMITRAAN is currently the only Indonesian organization accredited to channel international Adaptation Fund and Green Climate Fund for developing countries’ resilience to climate change.
In 2020, KEMITRAAN was included in the 2020 Think Tank with the Most Significant Impact on Public Policy category issued by the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program from the University of Pennsylvania, America. In 2021 KEMITRAAN officially joined the UNCAC Coalition, a global network of more than 100 countries committed to promoting the ratification, implementation and monitoring of UNCAC (United Nations Convention Against Corruption).
For more information, visit www.kemitraan.or.id
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Rakhmat Nur Hakim