Clive Chibule

Clive is an environmental leader from Zambia with a long history of engaged social activism. He began as a peer-educator focused on HIV/AIDS issues, when he became acutely aware of the relationship between communities’ economic wealth and their use of the environment. An expert in participatory approaches in community development, Clive has since taken the lead in the development of the Green Living Movement (GLM). GLM is a Zambian NGO which as now spread to Finland and Swaziland, which “creates partnerships with local communities and other development agents for development interventions […] enabling communities to become managers of their own processes.” Clive is a member of the Management Team for GLM, and takes a leading role in all aspects of different project life cycles as well as in continuing his personal education, both nationally and abroad.

Using the JWH initiative grant, Clive studied advocacy and the use of social media in order to increase the presence of his NGO. He traveled to Nova Scotia, Canada, to complete the hands-on Communication and Social Media Certificate. “The course emphasized effective communication and advocacy strategies by identifying powerful avenues to disseminate information and campaign messages.” Clive feels confident about asserting his NGO’s influence in policy-making, as well as his ability to reach new audiences using a variety of digital media. “This has been a good opportunity for me and the organization to improve on how to communicate with relevant stakeholders on issues of the environment. I have already started developing the communication strategy for the organization. I am proud to be a professional communicator.” In future, Clive would like to use his acquired skills to establish platforms in which communities would engage in order to enhance their political and civic leadership, combining different development actors and facilitating effective communication between them. He feels that “leadership development and governance […] is paramount for the success of a participatory community development process. In natural resource management, this cannot be over-emphasized as Development facilitators need to understand the far-reaching benefits of how to communicate with different classes of stakeholders.”

Clive won a Gender-Just Climate Solution Award in 2018, see here for more.