Growing up in Kenya, Renson and Elsy Nyongesa were inspired by their mother, who would plant ten trees every year on her birthday in an effort to conserve the earth. The siblings, now ages 22 and 23, are university students, serve on the Wisdom Council for Planeteer Alliance, and are members of the 2024 United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Tide Turners Plastic Policy Cohort conducted in partnership with Captain Planet Foundation’s Planeteer Alliance.
As they’ve seen their community impacted by major land degradation, Renson and Elsy became further involved in tree-planting initiatives early in their life. In 2020, they began educating local youth on the impact of dumping waste, encouraging the community to properly dispose of plastic by recycling. As their activism and passion have grown, they’ve become involved in addressing plastic policy.
The UNEP Tide Turners Plastic Policy Cohort is a program that works with Captain Planet Foundation to empower young people to identify policy issues in their community, then design and implement a campaign to address it. This program equips young people with the tools to identify the root cause of an issue, understand their scope of influence in their community, and how to approach stakeholders in an effective way.
Though individual behavior is crucial, policies allow for large, systemic changes that can have lasting impacts. Renson and Elsy wanted to get involved in this program so that they could influence local policy with the hopes of reducing overall plastic consumption and waste.
“Environmental policy is important as it helps us to come up with best ways of holding environmental polluters accountable and ensuring a better, cleaner environment for us all,” shares Elsy.
The pair are working on a campaign to expand the scale of university policy on single-use plastics. This campaign effort has resulted in campus-wide changes including better waste disposal practices, a reduction in the sale of single-use plastics, and an influx of students and staff using reusable items. The pair have used their influence to encourage their university and other institutions to introduce water dispensers to encourage the use of reusable water bottles, and have established effective garbage collection procedures in their community.
They hope that, as they see these policies work within their university, they can expand this project to address more institutions.
“Being part of this cohort has given me an optimistic view of the climate issues that face us all. This has enabled me to go after them like never before,” says Renson.
Both Renson and Elsy have found that this policy training has equipped them with the tools to address policy effectively, engage community members, and communicate with stakeholders. For these siblings, environmental activism is a life-long endeavor and they hope to reach an even larger audience as they continue to advocate for the conservation of the planet. They encourage young people to take action and get involved. “Unity is strength. Without collaborative effort, we can’t make a change in the world. It takes just a few individuals who are passionate about solving a particular problem facing the world to make it better,” says Renson.