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Five WCC fellows trace their climate work to home ground

August 6, 2026 · 1 min read

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Thu, 08/06/2026 - 09:50

Five young researchers joined the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 2026: four through the Climate Curve Constellations Fellowship, a programme placing early-career researchers with organizations working on climate change, and one returning for a second internship in the WCC ’ s work on children ’ s rights. They came from Nigeria, Uganda, Sierra Leone, and the United States. Ask any of them why climate justice, and the answer starts somewhere specific. A farm, a marsh, an audit desk.

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In Eruwa, a farming town in Oyo State, southwest Nigeria, Toyosi Olatayo grew up the daughter of a Baptist pastor, attending services at the Oke-Oba Baptist Church, part of the Nigerian Baptist Convention. Her grandfather grew cassava and okra. She followed him to the farm as a teenager to harvest. Most of her congregation farmed, too.

She studied geography at the University of Ibadan. The question came from home. “ Why are people working so hard and still struggling?” She returned to Eruwa afterwards and worked alongside smallholder farmers, mostly women,…

Source: World Council of Churches · Read the full story →

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I liked Toyosi's story. A girl who grew up in a Baptist church in Eruva, who went with her grandfather to harvest cassava and okra, is now working on climate change. And in our Batumi coastal farmers also often say that "we work a lot and still it's hard for us". It is good that a person starts from his own yard.