Knowledge into Use
The “Knowledge into Use” awards to uncover creative and innovative ways of showcasing and using resilience knowledge. Learn about the 2023 winners below.
Performing for Change
Noble Arts Foundation
Bamenda, Cameroon
Nobel Arts Entertainment
Noble Arts Entertainment is a youth-led creative organisation that equips young people with the necessary skills and resources to utilise the arts, particularly theatre and film, to raise awareness and challenge their local communities. Their “Performing for Change” project tackles food insecurity, a problem exacerbated by violence, and climate change in the conflict-affected northwest region of Cameroon. The Anglophone regions of Cameroon are especially affected by these issues, making it increasingly difficult for farmers to cultivate crops, resulting in food shortages and malnutrition.
Learn more about their story here and the theatre production here
In Which Language Does the Rain Fall?
Community Design Agency
Mumbai, India
Community Design Agency (CDA) is a social design organisation that believes that architecture, design and arts can be used to promote equity, justice, and inclusion. They collaborate closely with most impacted communities residing in inadequately built environments and create safer spaces and enhance climate resilience in their neighbourhoods. As part of their neighborhood regeneration efforts, their project, In Which Language Does the Rain Fall?, aims to collaborate with the residents of one of the most affected Resettlement and Rehabilitation (R&R) colonies in Mumbai’s Govandi, Natwar Parekh compound.
Learn more about their story here
Youth Visions in a Changing Climate
Amava Oluntu
Cape Town, South Africa
Youth Visions in a Changing Climate is a collective project anchored at Amava Oluntu and combines artists, activists, researchers and practitioners from HandCantrol360, the Beach Coop, Centre for Sustainability Transitions at Stellenbosch University and the City of Cape Town. While the project is intergenerational, the focus of the project is on youth visions for more just and flourishing futures in times of climate, environmental and social change within a cityscape. The project builds on multiple collaborations including work connected to Youth Nature Futures, Pollinating Pride in People, Stories for a Better Tomorrow and uses arts-based and participatory approaches to democratise science in public spaces, strengthen transformative capacities and to jointly envision what a resilient, thriving and connected Cape Town can look and feel like for current and future generations.
Read their story here
Climate Change Scenario to Informed Community-Based Adaptation and Planning in Nepal (CCSICAPN)
Youth Innovation Lab
Rajapur, Nepal
The Youth Innovation Lab (YI-Lab) operates within the Rajapur municipality, situated between the Geruwa and Karnali rivers. Despite having established early warning systems this area is susceptible to floods that significantly disrupt the lives of the local community leading to economic losses from submerged houses and farmlands. The YI-Lab employs an innovative approach by combining data-driven decision-making with data visualisation tools, such as risk maps, and incorporating them into visual art forms like murals. This creative approach aims to raise awareness among communities residing in disaster-prone regions, empowering them to better comprehend the risks they face.
Read their story here
Learn about the 2022 Knowledge into Use winners below:
Áranya Design led by Rhea Shah
Sarodhi, India
Áranya Design
Áranya Design is a young women-led rural design, research and advocacy studio based in Western India, working at the intersection of landscape architecture, architecture, art and ecology. They are deeply invested in place, and research traditional socio-hydrological resilience systems, indigenous wild food and foraging networks, and indigenous ecological knowledge. They share this knowledge through educational, landscape architecture and public art projects.
Read their story here
Joseph Tsongo, Coordinator of the Amani Institute DRC
Kiwanja, Rutshuru, Democratic Republic of Congo
Amani Institute DRC
Joseph Tsongo is a young social change activist based in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Amani-Institute ASBL is a socio-cultural movement bringing together young volunteers, in particular former child soldiers, working to promote the culture of peace and the development of grassroots communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their project “adopt a tree, not a weapon” is an advocacy campaign calling on decision-makers to “disarm violence” and “arm climate action” in the perspective of reconciling climate action with peace building in this context of a crisis.
Interfer South Africa
Capetown, South Africa
Interfer South Africa
Interfer is an arts-based collaborative social enterprise that strives to positively co-disrupt systems of exclusion and hegemony through innovative arts, research, and programmes in collaboration with other professionals, people and artists. Their work is foucses on inclusive/participatory street art and other arts-based methods, participatory workshops, research and programmes with the aim of amplifying voices and transformation. Their project led by Nabeel Peterson will visualize the stories of local community members’ experiences of the challenges and opportunities of securing water services in low-income areas of Cape Town. They will do this through murals painted by local artists at the University of Cape Town. The mural aim to raise awareness of city residents’ vulnerability and resilience, and of new ways of doing research that crosses sectoral boundaries, is engaging and has local impact. Photos and videos produced around the mural will be used as an example of knowledge-into-art to encourage the city to open up more spaces for public art that educates and raises awareness of critical local issues.
Practical Action Peru
Lima, Peru
Practical Action Peru works on flood resilience in the Rimac watershed to strengthen the capacities of communities to cope with and recover from the hazards to which they are exposed. In order to build safer and more resilient communities, their program works on 3 priority themes: Early Warning Systems, ecosystems and disaster risk reduction, and governance and investments. Their project highlights local knowledge on disasters, the program, together with two municipalities of the Rimac basin, organized a community art contest called “The district we want: resilient and safe”. The contest gathered stories and paintings from more than 30 community members, mostly young people and women, who captured the disaster history of their communities. These art pieces were collected in a publication and an exhibition distributed in local libraries and contributed to the analysis of climate hazards and the search for alternatives for disaster risk reduction.
Enock Mwangilwa from the Wildlife and Environmental Conservation of Zambia (WECSZ)
Itezhi-tezhi, Zambia
Wildlife and Environmental Conservation of Zambia (WECSZ)
Enock Mwangilwa has been involved in organizing and facilitating capacity building training for adolescents and youths in 10 districts in Zambia and leads the Community Coined Climate Actions (CoCCA) project under the Voices for just Climate Action (VCA) programme. WECSZ is an NGO that promotes environmental conservation in Zambia, has implemented a countrywide Environmental Education programme Chongololo and Chipembele Conservation Clubs of Zambia (CCCCZ) that has a reach of over 1,400 Conservation Clubs in Schools. Through the CCCCZ‘s activity dubbed, “Lived a Climate Crisis in Art,” they asked children and teenagers from rural Itezhi-tezhi district in Zambia to express how climate change affects them, the local environmental problems and their perceived solutions in the form of drawings and paintings. Inspired by this art, Enock and his team are committed to bridging the gap between theories and practical implementation targeting school age children and youth. The will establish climate action knowledge and skills hubs, platforms for the community members (especially children, youth and women) to explore smart climate actions in agriculture and forestry.
Learn more about their story here
