News

This World Water Week, we spoke with 19-year-old Ben May, Founder and President at ThinkOcean and a student at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the recipient of the prestigious Global Environmental Education Partnership EE 30 under 30 award.

The Thought For Food team likes a challenge – encouraging innovation in agriculture, and changing the way we eat. Having just closed the latest Thought For Food Summit in Rio, Brazil, we caught up with Program Director, Jared Yarnall-Schane, to ask what drives Thought For Food, and how young people can join the movement towards a more sustainable environment.

Rakhi Goswami sits on a carpet on the floor of a small classroom in Delhi, India. The learning centre is situated near one of the largest landfill sites in the country. Surrounded by a group of children painting plastic bottles in bright colors and making waste into decorations, she explains her work. She helps children build their dreams, instead of picking through landfill trash.

Today, 9 August, is the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. This year's theme is “Indigenous Peoples' Migration and Movement.” We spoke to thirty-four-year old Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, an indigenous woman from the Mbororo pastoralist community of Chad, to ask whether she believes there is a future for nomadic communities?

Three Young Champions of the Earth have been selected as Climate Trailblazers in the run-up to the Global Climate Action Summit, 12-14 September, in San Francisco, California, America. The Climate Trailblazers will be tasked with amplifying climate activism by showcasing their initiatives to tackle climate change and exemplifying how everyday actions can help people achieve extraordinary results.

Young entrepreneur Badr Idrissi never waited to be told what to do. Instead, he looked for innovative solutions to problems. He would often take the family TV or video recorder to pieces. “My parents would always tell me to put it back together!” he says. “But that’s how I learned to fix things.”

Twenty-eight-year-old wildlife defenders Zenifar Azmiri and Sahrin Jahan have been woken up more than once in the middle of night. Their camp in Cox’s Bazar, the largest refugee camp in Bangladesh bordering Myanmar, houses one million Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar.

Liliana Jaramillo, 2017 Young Champion of the Earth for Latin America and the Caribbean, shares her experiences in greening the rooves of Quito. July 2018 Moving on up... Being an entrepreneur is a challenge, but I do feel that I am getting closer to certain goals; closer to my dream: greening the city with native plants. Working on what you feel passionate about, keeps you doing many different things and time flies.

Omer Badokhon, 2017 Young Champion of the Earth for West Asia, shares his experiences implementing his biogas project in Yemen.  July 2018 Fighting challenges in Yemen to build success

Kaya Dorey, Young Champion of the Earth for North America, shares her experiences in building a sustainable apparel manufacturing hub in Vancouver. July 2018 How I Accidentally Became a Spokesperson for Sustainable Fashion

Mariama Mamane, 2017 Young Champion of the Earth for Africa, shares her experiences implementing a project to create fertilizer and bioenergy from aquatic weeds.   July 2018 The solution is in nature Today, everyone is talking about climate change and water, air or soil pollution. But I think we have alternative solutions right before our eyes already, in nature. Nature has always had an ability to heal itself. We can help it by using science and technology.

“Service is my guiding value. One day we will leave this earth, and what remains is what we do for people,” says Omer Badokhon, the Young Champion of the Earth for West Asia. Born in a small village in war-torn Yemen, Badokhon’s daily life is filled with challenges ranging from conflict to no electricity or water.  

Eritai Kateibwi, 2017 Young Champion of the Earth for Asia and the Pacific, shares his experiences implementing his modular hydroponics project in the island nation of Kiribati. March 2018

Adam Dixon, Young Champion of the Earth for Europe, shares his experiences in building a sustainable agribusiness. Hello and welcome to my blog! I am Adam Dixon from Phytoponics and the UN Young Champion of the Earth for Europe. I’m writing this in January and in this post, I will discuss some of my background in developing the project so far, I’ll tell you what has happened since the award of the prize in Kenya, what our aims are for the next few months, and the challenges we are tackling now.