When the School Floods: Navigating the Teaching Landscape in Kenya as a Youth Climate Change Activist
In this blogpost, which is based on a recent article in Youth, Emmanuel Simiyu Wanjala and Elizabeth Osumba share how youth climate activists who are also teachers act to ensure continuity in education through climate disruptions. The blogpost is part of NORRAG’s blog series on Provocations for Education from Youth Climate Activism.
Teachers in K-12 Kenyan schools take on numerous responsibilities, most of which go uncompensated. In addition to fulfilling their professional duties—lesson planning, teaching multiple classes with over 50 students, grading daily assignments and monthly exams, managing admissions, and conducting assessments—they are also expected to assume various administrative roles to enhance their promotion prospects. These roles include serving as class heads, departmental members and chairpersons, counselors, discipline committee members, and staff advisors for clubs and societies. They must ensure that the school environment is hygienic and conducive to learning, mantain peace and order among students, particularly during their daily or weekly responsibilities, and supervise students during mealtimes. Despite these overwhelming duties and demands, some teachers go above and beyond to act as climate change advocates, collaborating with students and colleagues during emergencies and climate crises to ensure continuity in education. In this blog, we highlight the voice and experiences of Liz, a young teacher in the Nyanza region whose journey from educator to climate activist emerged from a moment of crisis.
Figure 1: An image of the Flooded School, where teachers used bricks to create pathways between various classrooms and restrooms
From Teacher to Activist: When Climate Change Disrupts Education
When asked about what motivated her to join climate change activism, Liz recalls that she once viewed teaching as a profession confined to the classroom and co-curricular activities–until devastating floods paralyzed learning at her school.
I once viewed teaching as a noble profession centered in the classroom and beyond through co-curricular activities, where a teacher could only perform related teaching tasks. However, the narrative has changed. I was awakened by the devastating effects of floods at my placement school during the onset of heavy rains. I felt the real impact of climate change when the school became inaccessible for teachers and students, and everything came to a standstill. Imagine a learning center with flooded pit latrines, no playground, no dumping site, and flooded pathways. Learning was paralyzed, and the school was temporarily closed, but teachers had to report to check on the situation and receive briefings. At this point, gumboots became part of the staff and students’ uniforms, and teachers had to make countless sacrifices, even in the most challenging circumstances, to support the learners who showed up. The situation left the school seeking both substantial and immediate solutions.
It was through this collective effort that we were able to overcome the challenges we faced. We had to rethink and mobilize the community members, teachers, and learners, who contributed bricks that we arranged to create pathways to various places, such as the school entrance and pathways to the classroom, and to put latrines for learning to resume. My determination became a beacon of hope after I shifted my mindset from classroom teacher to environmental activist. I realized that quality education is all about resilience, adaptability, and commitment to every learner. Henceforth, I incorporate climate education in my teaching areas and provide therapy sessions as a counselor to those whose mental health has been affected by climate change, hoping to leverage and fill the gaps in climate education.
As I listened to Liz recount the events that led her to become a climate change activist, I became aware of teachers’ struggles in ensuring educational continuity, even with minimal resources. As a young teacher, Liz did not take a back seat; instead, she stepped up and collaborated with colleagues and community members to ensure that learners received the essential quality education and psychological support they needed. This effort inspired hope in learners and encouraged a community eager for knowledge to work together towards providing the school with additional infrastructural resources: toilets, pit latrines, and walkways. Kenya’s flooding situation has worsened lately, especially from April to June, putting education on hold in some parts of the country. As Liz observes below, at one point, teachers and community members had to attempt remote learning to ensure that learners kept pace with those from other unaffected regions. Since Kenya has a centralized education system with national examinations after grades three, six, nine, and 12, any delay in finding a solution could disadvantage students in Liz’s school.
After several meetings with colleagues and community members, we started community-based learning. However, despite organizing online classes, the target number of learners we could meet was low. Therefore, we had to take other proactive approaches as we monitored the water levels within the school. I realized that socioeconomic inequality is the most significant concern for marginalized and vulnerable communities. As our learning center stopped its activities, learning continued in other parts of the country, and there was only one academic calendar countrywide.
Kenyan Teachers & Youth Activists: Bridging Education and Climate Action
Liz’s story is not unique—Kenyan youth climate change activists who also work as teachers have played a crucial role in keeping environmental clubs active in schools. These clubs encourage and motivate students to participate in global climate change events such as Climate Emergency Day, Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Campaigns, and various environmental activities, including tree planting, community clean-ups, and workshops. Teachers like Liz, who view climate change as an existential threat, have been instrumental in simplifying complex concepts and inspiring students to engage in environmental policy-making through children’s and youth major groups to amplify their voices. Since young people face the greatest risks from the impacts of climate change, it is high time that education systems in Kenya and beyond empower them with practical skills, experiences, and knowledge that nurture their agency.
In my recent article, Promoting Food Security and Biodiversity Restoration: Insights from Kenyan Youth Climate Change Activists (Wanjala, 2025), I highlight how young climate activists in Kenya are leading on-the-ground collaborative solutions that merge education, sustainability, and activism to attain meaningful social change.
In addition to Liz, other Kenyan youths I interviewed showed a commitment to combating climate change by sharing visual arts on social media platforms like X, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, as well as posting them in public places to spread awareness about the significant impacts of climate change in their communities and to mobilize like-minded youths. Kenyan activists, particularly those who work as teachers, have played a leading role in encouraging their students to engage in activities like plogging (Martínez-Mirambell et al., 2023), not only as a disciplinary measure but also as a sport during public awareness events on waste management.
Despite the many responsibilities that young Kenyan teachers who identify as climate change activists, like Liz, bear, they have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to adopting and promoting solution-oriented strategies in the fight against climate change. Although their efforts often go unnoticed, unappreciated, and uncompensated, they are crucial in promoting educational continuity and fostering a sustainable future for marginalized and vulnerable communities. Given the ongoing challenges posed by climate crises, such as floods that frequently disrupt education, it is imperative for education policymakers and stakeholders to recognize the urgent need to advocate for the full integration of climate change pedagogy at the K-12 level. Rather than relegating it to a topic within select subjects or treating it solely as occasional initiatives like tree planting on World Environmental Day and Huduma Days, climate education should be a key component of learning if not a core independent subject at all levels of education.
The Authors:
Emmanuel Simiyu Wanjala is a doctoral candidate in the International Education Policy program at the University of Maryland College Park. He is a former high school teacher of English Literature in Kenya and a 2018-2019 Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) for Swahili at the University of Pittsburgh.
Elizabeth Osumba is an environmental enthusiast, climate activist, and teacher at Nanga Comprehensive School on the southern shores of L. Victoria, Kenya. She is pursuing a Master of Science in Conservation Biology at Maseno University, Kenya.