Expertise: Climate Activist
Ayakha Melithafa is a South African climate activist on a mission to change the world, Ayakha is one of the continent’s youngest activists. She pursued climate activism after experiencing first-hand the effects of drought on her mother’s farm in South Africa. After some research, she found out about climate change and how they are susceptible to more prolonged and severe droughts, and from then she wanted to educate people about what she had learnt.
In 2018, Ayakha joined Project 90 by 2030, an environmental organization that strives to bring about significant change to realize a low-carbon future by 2030 from where she got most of her information about climate change. Project 90 led her to African Climate Alliance, which is a youth initiative that peacefully protests against climate inaction and injustices. She was made a spokesperson and a recruitment official for the alliance’s youth wing.
In September 2019, Ayakha was one of 16 teenage petitioners who presented a landmark official complaint to the United Nations to protest the lack of government climate action. She is incredibly passionate about inclusivity in climate activism and believes that it is very important for poor people and people of color to go to these protests and marches because they are feeling the wrath of climate change the most. It is important for them to have a say, for their voice and their demands to be heard.
Calling For Climate Justice | DAVOS 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB3NqAC8aE4&t=2s
African Climate Alliance NDC Response – Read by Ayakha Melithafa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fymuM04XLRw&t=7s
