Retired Cameroonian footballer
Roger Milla is already famous for being the oldest goal scorer - at age 42 - in
World Cup history. And now the footballer is proving an unlikely hero in
Cameroon's struggle against climate change-related flooding.
A project by his organisation
Coeur d'Afrique (Heart of Africa), which aids abandoned children, is helping to
lessen the damage to the country's flood-prone political capital, while also
fighting youth unemployment - all by just picking up some plastics.
Over the past two years,
Yaounde's population of over 3 million has suffered some of the worst flooding
on record. But nature isn't solely to blame, say experts. Part of the problem
is the plastic waste clogging up rivers and blocking gutters.
"Heavy and prolonged rains
cause floods, but reckless human activities are as much to blame for
aggravating the flooding," said David Payang, sub-director for
conservation at the Ministry of Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable
Development.
Last year, Coeur d'Afrique
started paying young people to collect plastic litter, to cut down on pollution
and unblock the gutters. The second part of the project sees the plastic
recycled into slabs that can be used for construction.
With a single initiative, the
organisation aims to help solve four of Cameroon's major problems - youth
unemployment, plastic waste pollution, flooding, and non-sustainable building -
at once.