Rhodes University Masters student, Alex Lenferna, will be packing his bags as he prepares to fly to Germany where he will receive training though the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP).
A Mandela Rhodes Scholar, Lenferna is in his final year of his Philosophy Masters degree that focuses on environmental ethics and legal philosophy.
Rhodes University Masters student, Alex Lenferna, will be packing his bags as he prepares to fly to Germany where he will receive training though the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP).
A Mandela Rhodes Scholar, Lenferna is in his final year of his Philosophy Masters degree that focuses on environmental ethics and legal philosophy.
Lenferna scooped up the prestigious Young Environmental Envoy Award from UNEP and will join other top environmentalists from 18 developing countries at a conference in Germany this week. He is one of two South Africans going and has been rewarded for his outstanding work and dedication to the fields of climate change and sustainable development.
During the two week course, Lenferna and the other delegates will receive training by UNEP. They will participate in discussions in which they will share experiences with one another so as to build on their resources and capabilities to tackle environmental issues.
The opportunity to go to Germany came largely out of Lenferna’s work with the South East African Climate Consortium Student Forum (SEACC SF), of which he is the chairman. SEACC SF was formed last year in a joint venture with the Sustainable Seas Trust and the four Eastern Cape Universities (Rhodes University, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, University of Fort Hare and Walter Sisulu University).
As a new society at Rhodes, SEACC SF already has over 100 official members of which Lenferna says more than half are actively involved. Lenferna says that SEACC SF is still trying to establish its identity, branding and reputation but is confident about its growth and development.
Speaking about his eco-activism, Lenferna says, “I wasn’t much of an environmentalist building up in my undergraduate days.” When he was chairman of the Underwater Club at Rhodes he was approached by Dr. Tony Ribbink (CEO of the Sustainable Seas Trust) who asked him if he would head a student forum for the senior level of SEACC.
This was just the tonic needed to spark Lenferna into an eco-activist role. “I always had a passion for the environment, but never really got involved in it and this opened up a channel for me,” he says.
Much of the focus that Lenferna has received has been around the electric bicycle that he constructed earlier this year at the National Science Festival. The bicycle is powered by an electronic motor that can be charged in a plug socket and makes peddling unnecessary. “People do seem to like it for some reason,” says Lenferna, who points out that it was one of an array of projects that pushed him and SEACC SF though to Germany.
Lenferna plans on doing his Doctorate after he's finished his Master's thesis in mid-January next year. He is planning on doing his pre-Doctorate work in Grahamstown at Rhodes’ Environmental Learning and Research Centre. However, he is hoping to study further afield and has applied to universities in England, USA, Australia and Sweden.
He hopes that through his Doctorate he can find his way into a similar line of work as what he is currently doing with SEACC SF, but he would like to do so on a more professional level.
