Salem Mihindeou Ayenan, is a young citizen of Benin who believes that changing the balance of power and working towards gender equality is key to achieving the sustainable development goals and specifically climate change issues.
His passion is the human rights defence and climate justice activism.He has been able to participate in different international platforms, to learn more about climate change concepts.
Salem Ayenan, also is an alumnus of the Nairobi summer school on climate justice, an initiative of the pan African climate justice alliance, the second cohort, in 2022. The opportunity to participate in the Nairobi Summer School on Climate Justice has radically transformed his climate change activism. He says that during his two weeks stay in Nairobi, he learned a lot about the history of climate change, issues of adaptation and climate resilience, climate finance and renewable energies as alternatives for an energy transition.
The different lessons he learned from the Nairobi summer school have equipped him on the COP processes and climate negotiations. Fields visits to Kenya also allowed him to see the innovations that are being implemented in the country to enable farmers and herders to adapt to climate change.
the acquired knowledge helped to organise activities to raise awareness and mobilize young people in his community in Benin on issues of adaptation and climate resilience, loss and damage and climate finance.
In reference to what he learned from the Nairobi summer school on climate justice, Salem says that he has been contributing to the Climate Justice and climate change initiatives namely during African climate week by PACJA, where he actively participated in the launch of “climate justice torch Campaign journey since the launch to the COP27 held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in November 2022.
The experience earned from the Nairobi Summer School earned him trust from UNESCO and he was among eight members of UNESCO-African focus Group Discussion on greening curriculum on climate education, who participated to the survey of more than 17,400 young people around the world.
For several occasions at COP 27, in front of an audience of ministers of education and environment, Executives from UNESCO, UNFCC and representatives of civil society organizations, he expressed the need of the young people of the whole world, more particularly those of African continent to have a quality education on climate. Under the leadership of PACJA, Salem Ayenan participated in several side events and press conferences at COP 27.
Currently, most of his work is with children and young people on climate education. In addition, his activism for climate justice is growing daily with his presence on social networks and his participation in activities to challenge world leaders to realize that the problem of climate change is a matter of life and death.
