Wake of the Waves
Westlake Village, CA
2023, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Climate Hero: Vanessa Nakate, UNICEF & Rise Up Movement
Outraged with humans’ very own actions,
Outgrown by the destruction rooted in our very own hands…
An obstacle left as a hurdle to be taken over:
Poverty, hunger, our lives, and violence to one another.
It is a crisis not a story or a myth,
As Vanessa Nakate shouts…
We need to “wake up!”
To fix the patterns of the tides indented in the sea,
The current fixation on wealth
It begins to decay like a scar in our land, a wake in the ocean.
A Ugandan Woman joining the march,
To take a stand and strike against inaction of our world falling apart…
Climate change is what it is,
Not a wake in the sea but an imprint on our land caused by our own hand
We need to “wake up,” Nakate states.
Starting in 2019
Founding the Youth for Future Africa,
She woke up, and turned back the tides at the sea,
Finding her own place in the world
Joined by 20 others, Young climate activists,
Demanding to break ties with fossil fuel industries
As she sent a letter to the World Economic Forum floor
At the Desmond Tutu International Peace Lecture
A Ugandan woman speaks up
To “wake up” as she puts it
To recognize the faults of our world,
Humans’ very own actions create the crisis that lies in the wake
Ending poverty, hunger, disease, and violence.
Climate change is like a nightmare.
Haunting our every move,
Preventing children from having food.
How can you end poverty without taking a closer look at what we do?
Step out of your comfort zone
“Wake up” can’t you see the damage that is already done
We need to “wake up,”
To shade the tides to lessen the impact of global emissions…
People living in luxury are the ones who sit back
While we are fending with babies on our backs,
No food for them to eat and no energy to meet our needs
We need to “wake up” Nakate states
Criticizing capitalism as a link to environmental degradation
Nakate speaks up
Appointed as the UNICEF goodwill ambassador
And founder of the “Rise Up Movement,”
She allowed a voice to be heard by many others like her
Reaching to install solar panels in many of Uganda’s schools
Let’s save some energy, let’s lessen the impact we have on the wake
Not only are we in a poverty correlated with food
But one with energy too
Money is being sent shipment after shipment as oil is being dug from the bottom of our earth
Vanessa Nakate shouts that “In the end, you know, we cannot eat coal, we cannot drink oil”
A hero to say the least
Only 26 and fighting the wake that is traced by humans
Have you heard of the threats to the Congo Basin?
Well, it will be gone in around 77 years,
We need to “wake up!”
In the Times she writes:
“No country, no matter where, is just a country. What happens in the Congo Basin rain forest…
influences weather patterns across the world”
We are interconnected from the root to the tips of the leaf
Our biodiversity is what matters
Like the Great Barrier Reef
A Ugandan climate activist with the name: Vanessa Nakate
Grabs attention with Africans’ attitude toward the crisis
That lays a wake like the tides
Founder of the Rise-Up-Movement
Leader of a pack
She states one thing that should be made very clear…
That we really need to “wake up!”
Reflection
While doing research for this poem, I realized how impactful a single human can be to our nation and the world around us. Nakate is a hero, one that pushes the boundaries for herself and others to find solutions to overcome a crisis at our hands, climate change. I would like you as readers to take a closer look at what we do to our world, and how much we have an impact. No matter where you are, we all should have a voice in this world, and we really need to pave the path for our generations and the future ones to come.