Hello readers. Welcome to #Women4theClimate on CleanbuildVoices!
It’s another Wednesday and we’re excited for you to meet our Woman Crush of the day. She is none other than the astounding Elizabeth Wanjiru Wathuti.
Elizabeth Wanjiru Wathuti is a Kenyan environment and climate activist that is passionate about sustainability, environmental conservation, and community development. She has a BA in Environmental Studies and Community Development.
Elizabeth is the founder of the Green Generation Initiative (GGI), which nurtures young people to love nature and be environmentally conscious at a young age through practical climate and environmental education.
Through this initiative, she has planted over 30,000 tree seedlings in Kenya.
Enthusiastic about sustainability, Elizabeth is a sustainability analyst at the Sustainable Square, Kenya, which is a micro-multinational firm in the field of sustainability, CSR, and social impact, and focuses more on organizational sustainability, transparency and disclosure, responsible investment, and social impact.
As a change-maker, she has several awards and recognitions to her credit.
Elizabeth’s outstanding passion and commitment to environmental conservation which dates back to her childhood earned her the Wangari Maathai Scholarship award (an award in memory of the late Professor Wangari Maathai who was the first African woman to receive the Nobel peace prize for her efforts to save Kenya’s forests).
She was a 2019 Regional Finalist for Africa for the UN Young Champions of the Earth Prize 2019 which is a forward-looking prize designed to scale the ambitions of brilliant young environmentalists and the highest environmental honor for youth attributed by the United Nations.
Elizabeth is an Alumni of Youth in Landscapes Initiative (YIL), and she is also a 2018 Global Youth in landscape leadership recognized by the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF).
Her video “The Forest is a Part of Me” was featured on Youth Voices in Landscapes by the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) as part of a series.
She was named the Africa Green Person of the Year 2019 Award by the Eleven Eleven Twelve Foundation and was also honored with the Africa Youth Awards in its 2019 list of the 100 Most Influential Young Africans.
In 2019 on International Youth Day, Elizabeth Wanjiru Wathuti was recognized for her work in environmental conservation by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex on their Instagram feed. She was also featured on the Commonwealth Trust website of the Queen of England.
In the same year, Greenpeace featured her alongside Oladuso Adenike and Vanessa Nakate as one of three young black climate activists in Africa trying to save the world.
Elizabeth Wanjiru Wathuti is a member of the Greenbelt movement, a movement founded by the late Nobel Prize winner; professor Wangari Maathai who is Elizabeth’s role model.
Watch this space as we’ll be back for another edition of our #Women4theClimate.
