Age
16
Country of Residence
Nigeria
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?
My father used to tell me about how he enjoyed his childhood. They would gather at the village square at night to tell tales and enjoy the moonlight dances. Looking through the window at night, especially during the full moon, I feel sad that I could not enjoy what my father enjoyed. I could only behold mosquito-breeding gullies, erosion sites and dirty litters that are quite annoying. One day, as I was listening to my father’s small radio, I overheard that plastic trash is reaching Mount Everest. I became so worried that at needed to help do something. While I couldn’t stop all the effects of climate change, I realized that there are a few things I could engage in to help fight climate change. It was on this note that my friend and I decided to start Recycling For Sustainability.
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.
We encourage others in our community to participate in recycling by buying their recyclable trash at a giveaway price. We also actively encourage others youths to join in the fight against climate change and embrace sustainability. This we do by going to schools within the community to establish the project and to encourage students to replicate our action. Our annual town hall meetings are another avenue in which we reach other youths in our community. During our school’s annual graduation ceremonies we also showcase our work and get a wider audience to get to know about what we’re working on. To reach many youths, we have also involved our community youth leader in our project to help mobilize many of the youths who believe in him to join the project. To get our project wider publicity, we have decided to invite a journalist to be part of the program so as to help us spread the information of the project through the media. This is to make our voices heard not just in our country but globally. The reason for all these is to impress into people’s mind on the importance of taking action against climate change since it is a global challenge, so everyone, anywhere should take action.
How many people are on your team?
5
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
We have provided solar fans/lanterns to about 50 households in our community who formerly depended on kerosene lanterns which produces a lot of smoke in the environment. Our recycled solar toys bring joy to children, and our solar fans offer relief on hot days. We have also had remarkable impacts through the prototypes we built. Our community members are now littering fewer trash and our community is now becoming healthier and cleaner. Our initiative aims to promote sustainable living and reduce environmental pollution.
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Growth (We’ve moved past the very first activities and are beginning to have consistent weekly or monthly impact)
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Recycling For Sustainability is a youth-led initiative which was created out of concern for unhealthy surroundings due to the effect of climate change and community litters, especially plastics trash.
Project title
Recycling For Sustainability
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
We are trying to solve the problem of unsustainable environment and reduce the effects of climate change. This is because, our environment breeds a lot of mosquitoes which has caused a lot of deaths especially children 0-5 and my two siblings are among these. Worst, people in my community practice open defecation that is an eyesore which has reduced the once beautiful surroundings, as my father said, to a filthy surrounding. Seeing all of these, I could not fold arms but look for a way to contribute so as to help people in my community live in a sustainable environment and achieve optimal health. This matters to me.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
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.
Another pressing problem we want to address right now is the issue of open defecation which is an eye sore that has left our community in a very bad shape. It is no longer news that our water bodies are being contaminated as a result of this as erosion carry these excreta directly to our drinking wager source and this has created untold diseases of which cholera is one of them. To address this issue, we decided to put our prototype into action by deciding to build and donate a 4 rooms toilet facility which will be two rooms for males and 2 for females with the intention of stopping open defecation. To begin, we took the first step of meeting our community leader on December 2025 who was very impressed by our idea and therefore summoned members of his cabinet. Together, they approved of giving us a piece of land to build the toilet We can only be able to do this if we receive funding and support from any organization very soon.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Unlike many climate programs that focus mainly on awareness, our project incorporates working prototypes that people can see and learn from. We built a solar-powered sustainable city and a 45kg solar-powered airplane to demonstrate how renewable energy can help stop fossil fuel emissions thereby reducing the effects of climate change. By moving from mere ideas to practical prototypes, we aim to inspire other youths in our community and beyond to embrace sustainability, and challenge industries to develop cleaner alternatives to fossil fuel products. These award-winning prototypes have helped many to embrace sustainability in our community and beyond.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
To address these issues, we built a prototype sustainable city that is entirely powered by solar, ranging from all gadgets used in the city to vehicles that move on its roads as well as ships that navigate its waterways. We used this city to educate members of our community on what sustainable living is all about and therefore encouraged them to copy us and make our community sustainable. Collaboratively, we also built a prototyped 45kg, five feet sustainable airplane that is powered by solar. This is to challenge the aviation industry to make their products sustainable by reducing fossil fuel emissions. We believe that youths have the potential to contribute to fighting climate change and this is our little way to support the fight.
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
Our team has five members: Miracle, Mary, Goodness, Jahswill, and Ugochi. Miracle handles research and our social media, Mary manages the finances and is an assistant team lead, Goodness contributes to activities regarding the project, Ugochi is our publicity secretary, while I lead innovation, and coordination. We share leadership by dividing tasks according to our strengths, and making decisions together to ensure the team runs smoothly.
