We recently turned THREE and had a week-long Susty Triversary campaign to celebrate!
In Lagos, we teamed up with the good guys at MANI to host a susty party themed on Climate Change and Mental Health. We had an evening of healthy discussions on our changing climate, mental health, sustainable development, Yoga by Funmi and games from our partners Bestman Games.
Our susty parties are one of the ways we integrate pop-culture in our sustainable development advocacy, we have been hosting them since 2016 and they keep getting better.
The theme for this particular party was inspired by the series of heat waves across Nigeria and the reaction from most young people to these extreme weather patterns, it suffices to say that a changing climate can slowly make us go crazy. Enter the good guys at MANI and their work on mental health issues.
At the party, we talked about several topics and played mind stimulating games that required participants to think through a concept, listen to people’s experiences and to practice stillness. We even threw in some Yoga.
The party was potluck themed and our guests provided refreshments that was shared; we have a no plastic bottled water policy at our events, so folks had to come in with their water bottles and drink from a water dispenser; we also did well to use more of paper cups and paper plates.
The MANI team discussed issues around stigma and the need to speak to a health professional when in doubt on the state of your mind and mental health. They also helped connect some dots in the mental health, climate change conversation and you can find more details on that here.
Team SustyVibes discussed some of the apparent ways climate change is already hitting Nigeria (droughts, deforestation, Lake Chad Shrinkage, Sea level rise, heat waves, erratic rainfall, etc) and some of the ways we can support climate action as young people (public advocacy, demanding government action, living responsibly, etc).
All in all, we had a fun day learning, sharing and meeting really cool folks. Big thanks to Adesola Falomo for allowing us to use her amazing twenty six.co space and to Bernard Kalu for our pictures. You can find more photos here.
Happy Susty triversary to us!!!