/ 10 October 2022

Spice Warrior environmental activist speaks up for climate change in Kenya

Anita Soina 2 Small
Anita Soina has written an easily-understood book called The Green War and started a grass-roots organisation to raise awareness and action to combat global warming. Photo: Anita Soina

“The thing that discourages many people, especially those who don’t have the environmental conservation background, is the terminologies used to convey information,”  says environmentalist Anita Soina.

So, to try to break it down, she wrote an easy-to-understand book, The Green War.

Written for “the next generation”, the idea was to reassure young people that they are not alone, in case they find the difficulty facing humanity way too daunting to deal with, psychologically.

The book came about after realising she had to reach more people than she did online and through her organisation, Spice Warriors, which started in 2018. The political enthusiast and graduate of MultiMedia University of Kenya, says Spice Warriors is an initiative whose membership comprises mostly people who have no previous knowledge of environmental or conservation issues. 

“This way, I try to open people to the fact that they don’t have to leave their careers to pursue environmental courses to be environmentally conscious. When I was starting, I didn’t have a conservation background. I took time to educate myself,” she says.

She found that one of the most effective ways to mobilise people and inspire action was through planting trees. 

To ensure that when we go to communities to plant trees, we leave them with the culture of tree planting, and it becomes a ripple effect,” Soina notes.

Even as she pushed her climate agenda, however, Soina faced problems. One was the shortage of environmentally conscious leaders in parliament. So she decided to run for office as MP for Kenya’s Kajiado North region.

Although she was unsuccessful, she believes that just the act of standing raised awareness of the issues behind climate change and the need to mobilise people, act presciently and invest in adaptive behaviour. 

“The other issue has to do with resources. Many of us are trying to do environmental projects with little or no resources, yet we see a lot of misuse of resources happening, whereas many grassroots projects need to be supported,” says Soina.

With a presence in South Sudan and Tanzania, the young activist is looking to expand the reach of Spice Warriors.

Her dream is to see teams of environmentally conscious people — specifically, people without a background in environment or conservation — coming together to create a generation of leaders interested in climate change. And, she says, her political drive is only just getting started.

“I am in talks with many environmentalists in Uganda and Germany who have run on green platforms before so that we can see more voices for the climate going for political seats with the aim of changing the narrative within corridors of power.”

Climate change “is real and is no longer a 2070 thing”. Her Spice Warriors “should serve as a wake-up call to the young people to fight for a course, to make the world a better place for all of us to live in.” 
The key thing for her, is that young people feel they can do this together. In this war against climate change, she is determined that no one gets left behind. bird story agency