On 29 July 2026, Mt. Kenya Network Forum (MKNF) marked Climate Action Day at Sweetwaters Mixed Secondary School, near Nanyuki in Laikipia County, under the theme Leading the Just Transition. Students, speakers, and organisers gathered in the school grounds to say NO to fossil fuel expansion and YES to clean, renewable energy solutions that protect our communities, our environment, and future generations.
What a just transition actually means
A just transition is not only a change in where our energy comes from. It is a change in who benefits. Real climate justice means putting people before profits and ensuring that no one is left behind as the world moves toward a greener future. That principle framed everything about the day: the conversations, the questions from the floor, and the commitments made in the open air.
Too often the climate conversation happens far away from the communities carrying its costs. Climate Action Day was designed to close that distance — to bring the argument into a school compound in Laikipia and let young people take the microphone.
Why a school, and why here
Sweetwaters Mixed Secondary School is a boarding school serving learners from the surrounding Sweetwaters area. Holding the day here was deliberate. The students in that assembly will spend their working lives inside the transition being debated now, and they are already living with its early consequences: shifting rainfall, pressure on water and grazing land, and rising costs across the Mt. Kenya and ASAL regions.
The day ran as an open outdoor assembly. A seated speaker panel addressed the gathering, followed by a public address component that opened the floor to the students themselves.
Every action counts, every voice matters, and together we can drive meaningful change.
Youth leadership is not symbolic
The strongest thread running through the day was youth leadership. Young people are not a future constituency in the climate movement — they are leading it now. What they need is not encouragement alone but genuine platforms, real information, and a seat where decisions are actually made.
That is why the format mattered as much as the message. A panel that speaks and then listens produces different outcomes from one that only speaks.
Climate Action Day at Sweetwaters Mixed Secondary School, held
under the theme Leading the Just Transition. Photos: Mt. Kenya
Network Forum, Climate Action Day, Sweetwaters Mixed Secondary
School, July 2026.
Ending fossil fuel expansion
MKNF’s position on Climate Action Day was direct: ending fossil fuel expansion is central to reducing emissions and protecting the communities most exposed to climate harm. Continued expansion locks in decades of emissions and diverts investment away from the clean energy systems our communities actually need.
The alternative is not abstract. It is resilient local economies powered by clean energy — solar for schools and health facilities, reliable lighting for households and small businesses, and energy systems that communities have a real stake in.
Putting roots in the ground
Alongside the assembly and the panel, tree seedlings in nursery bags were brought onto the site — a reminder that climate action is measured in what takes root and survives, not only in what is said from a platform.
Watch: Climate Action Day on TikTok
The work continues
Climate Action Day is one moment in a longer campaign. MKNF will keep pushing for a just transition across the Mt. Kenya and ASAL regions: raising community voices in energy and climate policy, expanding practical renewable energy access, and standing with young people who refuse to accept that a fossil-fuelled future is inevitable.
A future powered by hope, equity, and sustainability is not something we wait for. It is something we build.
In solidarity,
Mt. Kenya Network Forum Team
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