Country of Residence
Nigeria
Age
20
Project title
Climate Speaks Your Language
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Climate Speaks your language is a climate and civic action initiative aimed at enabling Nigerian students to understand climate change as it affects their community, based on their lived experiences and in the language they understand best. Helping them see that taking climate action within their community is one way to demonstrate active citizenship. They do not need to be old enough to vote to be active citizens, by mere understanding and protecting their environment, they are active citizens.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
https://planetcred.app
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Scaling (We’re expanding impact to new locations or in new and innovative ways)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
March 2026, I was in a fellowship; Hope Behind Bars Civic Influencer Fellowship. We were to think of an Innovative Idea that advances Civic Participation, using my existing knowledge on climate change , I began to think of how to connect climate action with civic influence, then at that moment , I had my AHA! , yes this was it ! what if climate change spoke the language of the people , what if young people at every levels of life get to understand that their small action to the planet counts as act of service to their country. That was the beginning of the Climate Speaks Your Language Initiative, so far we have reached 400 students across both urban and rural Nigeria helping them understand that climate and environmental action is still civic duty, while also making climate education localized to them based on their community's climate reality and their languages.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Across Nigeria and Largely the continent of Africa, Climate Education and Information are normally circulating in "big grammer", often talked about in conferences and forums and largely never translated to languages that speak to the people at the grassroot, the people suffering the impact the most, those living with the harsh impact every single day. A young girl in kano state might struggle to understand "green house gases" and global warming , but she most definitely would feels the heat waves that hit her community and would experience the drought slowly claiming her home land. A young boy in lagos who got socked on his way to school might not understand flooding in terms of El Nino but he definitely can feel the impact, he knows he doesn't appreciate getting socked and having to walk through water puddles reaching above his knee level just to get to school. So the question becomes, what if climate change spoke the language of the people , what if climate education became localized, what if every young child vulnerable to the impact of climate change gets to understand it based on their lived experiences and in the languages they understand best or even simplified english .
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
Our Solution is the Localization of Climate Education. At Planecred, we believe that the first step to climate action is "understanding", when young Nigerians, Students understand climate change especially based on how it affects them, Then climate action becomes inevitable, when they understand their own daily habits contributing to the impact, they are better able to take action, and when they see themselves not just as recipients of change but as active citizens who are responsible enough to make a difference , they make a difference ! So our solution is The climate speaks your language; Climate and Civic Action Initiative. where we are aimed at helping young nigerian students see how climate change speaks their language and enabling them to understand and be willing to take adequate actions from the grassroot up.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
The Climate Speaks Your Language project has created impact in the lives of the 400 students we were able to reach during implementation. These students understood climate change as it affects their communities, and co-created adaptation solutions for their respective communities. The communities involved were also impacted through the help of the students to carry out active citizenship towards their environment. Students engaged in tree planting and proper waste disposal, creating a cleaner community. A climate club was further set up in the 4 schools reached, creating a space of continuous learning for the students. The project attracted a philanthropic grant from Dr. Yusuf at Sound Academy School, one of the schools impacted, to support the students in a plastic recovery project. They combined plastic waste with paper mache to create beautiful painted flower vases and pencil cases.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
The most innovative angle of our project is Localization. Across Nigeria, a lot of NGOs focus on climate education and sensitization. They go to schools, communities and "sensitize" them about climate change. But very few focus on the most important aspect of that sensitization program, "understanding" .. did these students actually understand what was said to them? What changed in terms of their behaviour? Could they identify climate change in their own communities? Did they see themselves in the conversation? These are important questions that often get neglected. After a "successful" project and photos and videos are taken, everyone calls it a day. We at PlanetCred decided to explore further. Climate change is too much of a broad topic and concept to be taught in a day, especially to people with limited prior knowledge, so we decided to focus and streamline the content of what we are teaching to reflect the community, the people, the culture and their language. It is climate education localized for them, and as we have seen, they now begin to see themselves in the loop, they now see themselves as active stakeholders and also are willing to take action.
How many people are on your team?
8
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
Hauwa Abubakar (me) - I am the Founder of PlanetCred. I had the idea at 19 last year. I oversee all activities, refine the core mission, identify our values, and lead the vision of PlanetCred. Ismail - Operations Manager at PlanetCred. He is also a climate impact expert. Vivian - Social Media Personnel and Communications Lead. Yusuf - Builds our tech products. Willy - Videographer. Emanuel - Graphics Designer. Zainab - Youngest member (16), bringing innovative ideas. Stacy - Fundraising
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
Our next step at PlanetCred is to digitalize our model. Our tech team is currently working on ways to see how we can convert our localized climate education model into a digital product that would be readily available to grassroots students and communities. We are creating a web app that can be accessed by other NGOs facilitating climate sensitization projects, ensuring that our unique localization model is adopted across the country. Our web application is aimed at localizing climate education for Nigerian youth based on their age group, geopolitical location (North East, North West, North Central, South South, South East and South West) and their preferred language from the list of supported languages (Hausa, Nigerian Pidgin English and Simplified English), ensuring that language and age would not be a barrier to understanding climate change. Users can get personalized climate education that reflects their lived realities and their environment, making it easy for them to see themselves as part of the solution. Our platform would also suggest possible adaptation and mitigation models users can easily adopt for each community.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
PlanetCred has managed in the first one year of its creation to attract a large social media audience that shares our ideology. We have a wonderful audience of over 1k followers on LinkedIn, 200 on Instagram, 3k on TikTok and 100 on X. We also have a community on Telegram of in-house people, 500, who actively engage in discussions and suggestions around how to make our model better. We host X Spaces and focus on advocating for localized climate education to be adopted around the country every month.
