The role that young people can have in spreading climate change messages and recruiting behaviour change is becoming more and more apparent. This hasn’t gone un-noticed in Sudan where an energy-efficient lighting awareness campaign was designed specifically to target primary school children as a route to engaging their families and communities. This is particularly important in Sudan where the illiteracy rate is still high, and many families learn from their children who attend schools. Schools are also usually the focal point for public events such as elections, festivals and pop-up vaccination centres and represent the full cross-section of Sudanese society – including all the different economic classes, races and cultures.
The education campaign was undertaken in October 2022 as part of Sudan’s Energy Efficient Appliances and Lighting (SEEAL) project which is designed to promote, demonstrate, deploy and transfer innovative low-carbon technologies, particularly high efficiency and usage-controlling lighting technologies and climate-friendly room air conditioners. A primary objective of the project is to reduce the strain on Sudan’s already over stretched electricity infrastructure and reduce the increase in fossil fuel dependent power generation that will be required as the proportion of Sudan’s population with access to grid electricity increases and the demand for lighting and air conditioning products rises. The project is being implemented by Sudan’s Ministry of Energy and Oil and the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA), with support from the United Nations Environment Programme’s United for Efficiency (U4E) technical team and the United Nations Development Programme and with funding provided by the GEF ...
