Country of Residence
Nigeria
Age
18
Project title
Keep Her Green
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Keep Her Green is a youth led climate education and action initiative helping students understand how climate change affects health, education and everyday life, while turning that knowledge into practical community action. Through school based conversations, webinars, awareness drives, tree planting and peer education, we are building young people’s capacity to become informed climate advocates and create healthier, more resilient communities.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
https://instagram.com/safiyaatta71?stkn=dHNsOGw4ZHJvMGs3
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Pilot-Stage (We’ve tried an activity or two)
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?
The idea for Keep Her Green began with a simple realization,climate change is often discussed as something distant melting ice,rising temperatures or environmental disasters but for young people, its effects are already present in the places where we live, learn and grow. I became increasingly interested in the connection between environmental conditions and human wellbeing, particularly how climate related problems can affect health, education and the opportunities available to young people. I also noticed that many students care about these issues but do not always have accessible spaces to learn what they can actually do about them. That gap became my “aha” moment. I did not want climate awareness to end with knowing that there is a problem. I wanted to create a space where young people could understand the problem, discuss it in language relevant to their lives, and become capable of taking action themselves. That is what inspired Keep Her Green: an initiative built around the belief that young people should not only be recipients of climate information but participants in creating solutions. I started thinking about how webinars, school conversations, awareness drives, tree planting and peer education could turn climate knowledge into something practical and sustainable.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Climate change is often presented as an environmental problem, but its consequences extend into health, education, livelihoods and community wellbeing. Young people are growing up in a world increasingly affected by extreme weather, environmental degradation, heat and other climate related pressures, yet climate education is not always accessible, practical or connected to their everyday experiences. The problem Keep Her Green is addressing is therefore not simply a lack of environmental awareness. It is the gap between knowing that climate change exists and knowing how to respond to it. This matters to me because young people are not only among those who will live with the long term consequences of today’s environmental decisions,we are also capable of influencing what happens next.Students can educate their peers,change everyday practices, participate in community projects and bring climate conversations into spaces where they are often overlooked. In my community, I want climate action to become something young people can see themselves participating in not something reserved for scientists, policymakers or large organizations. Keep Her Green focuses on making climate knowledge understandable, relevant and actionable, particularly for students who may not otherwise have access to climate focused opportunities.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
Keep Her Green combines climate education with practical, youth led action. Instead of treating awareness as the final goal, the project uses education as the starting point for participation. We plan to create accessible opportunities for students to learn about climate change and its connections to health, education and community wellbeing through webinars, school based discussions, awareness campaigns and educational resources. These conversations will be paired with practical activities such as tree planting, environmental drives and community education. A central part of the model is peer education. Rather than having information flow only from an organization to students, participants will be encouraged to take what they learn and share it with classmates, friends, families and their wider communities. This creates a simple cycle, learn,act, teach,multiply. The project is designed to remain low cost and volunteer led, making it possible to begin with the resources available to students while gradually developing partnerships with schools, environmental organizations, health focused groups and other youth initiatives. Ultimately, Keep Her Green is trying to build more than a single awareness campaign. It is building a community of young people who understand climate issues and feel capable of doing something about them.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
The first awareness drive, organized with my co founder, turned that idea into our first practical step and reached approximately 30 people. It showed us that Keep Her Green could begin small while building toward something much larger.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Our first awareness drive demonstrated the starting point of this model, rather than waiting for young people to seek out climate information, we take the conversation directly to them and create an opportunity for them to become participants. Keep Her Green is different because it does not separate climate education from the people who are experiencing its consequences. It approaches climate action through the everyday realities of young people,our health, our learning environments, our communities and our ability to influence others.Many environmental initiatives understandably focus on activities such as tree planting, clean ups or awareness campaigns. Keep Her Green incorporates these forms of action, but places them within a wider model, education,practical action,peer leadership,community multiplication.The innovative part is the emphasis on young people becoming multipliers rather than passive recipients. A student who participates in a webinar or school discussion should not be the endpoint of the project. They should leave with knowledge they can communicate to someone else and an understanding of an action they can take. The project also intentionally uses accessible, low cost approaches. Webinars and school-based education can reach students without requiring expensive infrastructure, while community activities create opportunities to translate online learning into visible action. I also want Keep Her Green to connect climate and health conversations. Environmental degradation is not only about trees, carbon or temperatures; it can influence the conditions in which people live, learn and stay healthy. Bringing these conversations together can make climate issues more personally relevant to students who may not initially see themselves as “environmentlists"
How many people are on your team?
2
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
Keep Her Green currently has two founders, including me.I lead the project’s vision,research,planning and development,while my cofounder has helped organize and execute our awareness activities.We work collaboratively,discussing ideas,dividing responsibilities and supporting one another during implementation.As the initiative grows,we hope to bring in students with interests in climate health, research,communications and community engagement,while maintaining a collaborative leadership structure
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 immediate goal is to build on the approximately 30 people reached through our first awareness drive and turn Keep Her Green into a structured, repeatable student led initiative. We plan to organize more awareness sessions and webinars connecting climate change with health, education and community wellbeing. We also want to introduce practical activities such as tree planting, environmental drives and community education so that climate knowledge leads to visible action. A major next step is developing our peer education model. Participants will be encouraged to share what they learn with classmates, friends and their communities, allowing each activity to reach beyond its original audience. We also plan to build partnerships with student organizations, schools, environmental groups and health focused organizations that can provide expertise, volunteers, speakers or resources. As the project grows, we will document participation and outcomes, including people reached, peer educators activated, sessions conducted and practical activities completed. Ultimately, we want Keep Her Green to grow from a small student initiative into a network of young people who can independently organize climate education and action in their own communities.
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.
Keep Her Green has already taken its first step from an idea into action through an awareness drive that reached approximately 30 people. The drive created an opportunity to introduce young people to climate and environmental issues and encourage conversations about why individual and collective action matters. While this is still an early stage initiative, the experience showed me that people are willing to engage when climate issues are presented in a way that connects with their everyday lives. More importantly, the awareness drive helped me test the foundation of the project: starting conversations, making climate issues accessible and encouraging people to see themselves as capable of contributing to solutions. Going forward, I want to build on this initial reach through structured webinars, school based conversations, environmental activities and peer education. I will track the number of people reached, participants who become peer educators, educational sessions held and practical activities completed. My goal is to move beyond simply counting people who hear about climate change. I want to measure how many people move from awareness to action, and how many subsequently share what they learn with others. The approximately 30 people reached so far represent a beginning.
