You’ve been a massive part of our 2022 and we want to take you through all the exciting projects we launched this year.
Let’s start in January, we wrapped up the 24th & final sub-project on our 2021 AY4E Fellowship – an environmental project we did in 7 states across Nigeria, fully funded by the National Geographic Society.
U-recycle Initiative Africa launched the 2021 AY4E Fellowship to promote environmental education and sustainability in secondary schools in seven states throughout Nigeria, reaching over 5600 teens. It aimed to influence behavior to reduce plastic pollution in Nigeria and empower young Nigerians to solve environmental problems.
By April, we celebrated and commended Aliyu Sadiq, our top performing AY4E fellow with a fully-funded trip worth $1000 to Rwanda, the cleanest city in Africa. Around that same time, Aliyu’s social enterprise- Ecocykle also won a grant from The Global Recycling Foundation. We are proud of all his efforts to address plastic pollution and celebrate him and his team.
May was a significant month, U-recycle Initiative Africa emerged as a semi-finalist in the Strand 3 #AfriplasticsChallenge where we took part in a 5-week intense digital hackathon and carried out research in 5 universities in 5 states across Nigeria (Abia, Ebonyi, Lagos, Nasarawa state and Kaduna) in view of developing our PlasticWize project.
Nigeria sits among the top 20 counties contributing to marine plastic pollution in the world (World Atlas). Our research revealed that 7 out of 10 Nigerian university students are either unfamiliar with the term marine plastic pollution or do not know what it refers to.
Let’s go to June, shall we?
Our PlasticWize Campaign, a transformative behavior change campaign targeting students at Nigerian tertiary institutions, won a grant from the Government of Canada in June after being selected as one of 15 finalists in STRAND 3 of the Afriplastics Challenge.
In July, U-recycle Initiative Africa partnered with Climrenew and The SDA Club Unilag to host one of nine Planeteer Alliance’s Climate Action global summits for aspiring young climate leaders. Our summit tagged the Save the Lagoon Summit, was held in Lagos to explore and discuss the importance and the significance of preserving marine and freshwater ecosystems for a climate-friendly future. Creating a global community of young activists and champions for healthy marine and freshwater ecosystems in their regions and worldwide is the primary objective of the Blue Climate Action Summit series.
Between August- September, we launched our PlasticWize virtual leadership and innovation Bootcamp, during which 170 Nigerian undergraduate women from 35 different schools and states were educated. Over the course of 19 sessions, participants in the PlasticWize Bootcamp where our participants gained a deeper Understanding of public speaking, plastic pollution, story mapping, design thinking, leadership, collaboration, and the use of data science in communicating the problem, among others; culminating in over 19 learning lessons.
The virtual Bootcamp had over twenty highly proficient speakers from the United States and Nigeria, including 2007 Nobel peace prize winner, Dr. Daniel Kammen, then Jeff Kirschner, Founder, and CEO, of Litterati; Chloe Mei Espinosa, Founder of Skip The Plastic Straw; and Jumoke Olowookere, Founder of Africa’s First Waste Museum, etc.
In September,
We launched our first office space on our 4th anniversary and we commenced our Green Mentorship Project for over 50 teens across 4 states in Nigeria with an amazing team of instructors, in view of empowering these teens with tools & resources to develop solutions to environmental issues in their school & communities & furthermore, access global opportunities
In October,
For our PlasticWize project, we produced 3 short films with young actress Esther Uzodinma, to promote awareness and influence behavior change toward tackling #plasticpollution
We launched our PlasticWize innovation workshops (in-person and virtual) across 6 campuses across six states in Nigeria, enlightening and empowering over 300 university students to tackle plastic pollution on their campuses.
Even though the year is winding down and a new one is just around the corner, the PlasticWize project has many more plans up its sleeve, in 2023
- We are reinforcing our plans to build the largest campus movement geared toward tackling plastic pollution in Nigeria.
- We are also introducing Our PlasticWize university policy scheme to some universities across Nigeria
- We plan to deploy PlasticWize creative waste bins to reduce and stop littering across these campuses.
- And Unveil an upcoming robust mentorship program for our PlasticWize fellows
- We also intend to Install some mural paintings across some campuses to nudge the right behavior and inspire students to reduce their plastic footprints (consumption)
- and last but not least launch our Web-App for the PlasticWize 21- day challenge.
That was a long ride, Now Let’s discuss our wins
We were in the news multiple times this year not just in Nigeria but across the World
- In January DW News featured & broadcasted our story worldwide
- Our work was also Featured on Global Citizen calling for real solutions to Plastic Pollution
- April brought more exciting news, as our Cofounder was featured in The Punch Newspaper on Earth Day, raising awareness of the power of meaningful actions in protecting the environment.
- We were featured on #CNN celebrating the work we do at U-recycle Initiative Africa. Hundreds of thousands of people across the world got to hear about the impactful work we do.
It’s been an incredible year
We are grateful to God and express our appreciation to everyone who contributed to this impact, including our team, our partners, our sponsors, and YOU.
As we draw the curtains of 2022,
We wish you a pleasant 2023 filled with impact, joy and wins.
Thank YOU for being part of our 2022.
