East Rotary Club leader targets climate change - Lincoln Journal Star

East Rotary Club leader Mwape targets climate change
Andrew Mwape, president of the Lincoln East Rotary Club and a native of Zambia, moved to Lincoln in 2020.

An interest in mitigating climate change brought Andrew Mwape from Zambia to Lincoln in 2020.

An interest in joining a service club with a high degree of diversity caused the environmentally conscious climatologist to join the Lincoln East Rotary Club later that year.

The club quickly embraced him, and several months ago, elected the 28-year-old African native as its club president for the current club year.

Mwape joined the National Drought Mitigation Center, located on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's East Campus, in August 2020. He serves as a graduate research assistant on an ongoing drought recommendation to the partnering Nebraska Department of Natural Resources and the Natural Resources Districts throughout the planning process. Mwape said Lincoln East Rotary Club has a number of activities lined up, both in Lincoln and globally, to minimize future impacts from climate change.

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“Climate change is a compounding factor of old and new global challenges,” he said. “For us as a club, it is only right that we commit to climate change mitigation and contribute to the global collective efforts to minimize future impacts from this crisis. We invite the Lincoln community and the world to join hands with us in the fight against the damaging impacts of climate change.”

Background

From 2016 to 2018, Mwape was executive director for an environmental nonprofit organization that seeks to raise environmental consciousness and awareness in African communities through education. Between 2018 and 2020, he was director in charge of operations at a forestry company that aims to conserve indigenous African forests by empowering rural forest-dependent communities with alternative means of livelihood apart from cutting down trees for charcoal burning.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering from Copperbelt University in Zambia and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Natural Resources at UNL.

His wife, Mercy Kipenda Mwape, has a background in Environmental Engineering and Natural Resources. She is leading East Rotary’s climate-related projects, including an Oct. 21 tree-planting project at Lincoln’s Brentwood Park, teaming with the Lincoln Parks and Recreation Department.

The role of the club president’s wife is an example of East Rotary’s efforts to have professionals lead their respective projects. As another example, all health- and nutrition-related projects are led by Dr. Chuck Ericson, a medical doctor and active club member.

Active recruiter

Kipenda Mwape is one of six members the enthusiastic club president has brought into the club during his three-year membership. The others are Betty Makena, Segun Samuel Oladipo, Ibukunoluwa Eunice Salami, Eric Christensen and Chikoti Mukuma.

Mwape said the diversity he observed within East Rotary attracted him to the club, whose membership roster also includes members hailing from Nigeria, Tanzania and India, and another member from Zambia.

East Rotary Club holds luncheon meetings at 11:45 a.m. on Wednesdays at The Garage, south of South 48th Street and Nebraska Parkway. Guest speakers scheduled to address the club later this month are Aubrey Paulsen, with the Tabitha Intergenerational Living Project, on Oct. 18, and Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird on Oct. 25.