As the New York Times recently reported, extreme heat from global warming is threatening education progress world-wide. According to the NYT, the United Nations Secretary General’s office recently estimated that at least 80 million children were out of school in 2024 because of extreme heat alone, with children in low-income countries especially affected. Food insecurity and limited resources, resultant of climate emergencies, can also lead to families feeling like they have to resort to selling their daughters as child brides for income in countries and communities where this practice is normalized. For example, the 2022 drought in the Horn of Africa resulted in nearly a fourfold increase in child marriages in affected areas of Ethiopia.
As the climate crisis worsens, the need for innovative solutions to ensure children's access to education becomes increasingly urgent. Carbon finance offers a pathway to mitigate the impact of climate change by funding communities’ sustainable development, including educational initiatives. This approach can create opportunities for children who might otherwise be left behind, such as Souza Mputikali Bina.
Souza Mputikali Bina is a girl in her fourth year of secondary school at Sainte famille high school, arguably the best school in Inongo at the Mai-Ndombe REDD+ Project. She is from the Indigenous Batwa tribe. Her story begins in the village of Ikita on Lake Mai Ndombe in the Bay of Lokanga.
As Souza progressed with her learning, she saw many of her friends have to give up their studies as they were pressured into early marriages. She also endured pressure from her family and the entire community to accept a marriage proposal and start a family, to the point of appearing insubordinate in the eyes of everyone in the village. The only thing motivating her refusal was to further pursue her studies and make a positive change to the daily life of her Batwa community.
Overwhelmed by peer pressure to marry, Souza asked the Mai-Ndombe REDD+ community engagement team to have her transferred from the Ikita school to a learning institution far from her village. With funding from the Mai-Ndombe REDD+ project’s carbon credits, Souza was able to escape the life of early marriage and have all of her housing and tuition fees covered at a new Catholic high school, where she is continuing her secondary education in teaching.
When the Minister of State for the Environment and Sustainable Development, Eve Bazaiba Masudi, visited the Mai Ndombe REDD+ project last July, Souza Mputikali's determination was applauded by many. Determined to make Souza an inspiration to other girls facing early marriage, Eve Bazaiba invited the student to her office in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa.
On Friday August 16, 2024, Souza Mputikali Bina, after a flight of over an hour from Inongo to Kinshasa, was received with pomp at the office of the Minister of State Eve Bazaiba. Resplendent in a white dress dotted with green leaves symbolizing the forest where she was born and grew up, the ambassador of the Batwa girl had a face-to-face meeting with the Minister.
For the record, the Batwa are the original inhabitants of the forests of the Great Lakes region of East Africa, made up of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They are part of a larger group of people living in the Central African Forests, commonly known as “Pygmies."
Owners of some of the forests that make up the Mai Ndombe REDD+ Project's conservation concession, the Batwa have long been considered an inferior social class. Historically, they have not received allowances for better health or education for their children, nor any other social or political benefits typically provided by the government.
They have been left behind, unable to meet the challenges of today's realities. With the advent of the Mai Ndombe REDD+ project and with earned income from the sale of carbon credits, the Batwas of Ikita have a school, safe drinking water and many other amenities at their disposal. Souza's journey from a small village to meeting with a government minister exemplifies how education and financial support from carbon revenue can enable indigenous girls to overcome societal pressures, pursue their dreams, and become catalysts for positive change in their communities.
