From Conflict to Climate Action: Cecilia's Journey as a Green Youth Champion

June 05, 2025

When Cecilia Adol Adar fled the violence of South Sudan at just seven years old, she didn’t know that her future would not only be shaped by the scars of war but also by the growing threat of climate change. Now 18 and a student at Lifeworks School in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, Cecilia is not only surviving, she’s thriving.

"I remember the sound of gunshots like it was yesterday," she says. “It was the first time I had ever heard them. I was just a child. I didn’t even understand what was happening. I got lost in the forest trying to escape. I was alone for two days before someone found me.”

Cecilia and her family were part of the wave of South Sudanese refugees who fled during the 2013 conflict. They found relative safety in Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp, now home to over 304,000 displaced people, but safety came with new struggles.

“It was a completely new world. I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t speak Swahili. I had never been to school,” she recalls. “We started life over in a mud-walled classroom where we’d eat porridge and go home. But that was the beginning.”

Years later, Cecilia is in Form Three and dreaming of a brighter future, not just for herself, but for her community. That dream became clearer when she joined the Green Youth 360 initiative, a project led by the Education Above All Foundation and Girl Child Network. The project empowers young people with green skills to address the escalating climate crisis in one of Kenya's harshest environments.

Kakuma sits in Turkana, one of Kenya’s most drought-prone regions. Rainfall is scarce, forest cover is minimal, and the temperature often soars past 45°C. The situation is further complicated by environmental pressure from a rapidly growing refugee population that relies on the land for survival.

“When the Green Youth 360 initiative came to our school, I wanted to help,” Cecilia says. “At first, I started with small things like sweeping the compound and collecting rubbish. Then, we were told that every student must plant a tree.”

But planting trees in Turkana is not easy. Water is limited, and the survival rate for young trees is as low as 48%. Still, many young people like Cecilia persevere, carrying water from home to keep their trees alive.

“Every year, we plant more trees at our school. Even though the sun is harsh and it’s hard to keep them alive, we try. Because we know what we are fighting for.”

The project intends to plant more than 2.4 million trees in 120 schools across the Kakuma and Dadaab refugee settlements.

However, Green Youth 360 goes beyond tree planting.  

It introduces innovative environmental solutions, such as repurposing the invasive Prosopis juliflora tree, locally known as Mathenge, into eco-friendly school furniture. While Mathenge has taken over large swathes of land, choking native plants and drying up water sources, Cecilia and her peers are turning it into a solution.

“We reduce the invasive species and provide chairs in our classrooms. It’s about making something good out of something destructive.”

The project also promotes sustainable practices such as:

• Briquette production from biodegradable waste, reducing reliance on charcoal and offering alternative income sources;
• Energy-saving stoves (jikos) that use up to 70% less fuel, cutting down on deforestation and harmful emissions;
• Beekeeping (apiculture), which supports biodiversity, food security, and youth entrepreneurship.

By 2026, the Green Youth 360 initiative aims to reach at least 76,800 young people across Turkana (Kakuma) and Garissa (Dadaab), turning schools and communities into hubs of climate resilience and sustainable development.

For Cecilia, the transformation has been deeply personal.

“To my fellow refugees,” she says, “you are more than a label. ‘Refugee’ is just a season. It will pass. You can be more. I am proof of that.”

Her journey is breaking barriers back home too.

“I’m the first girl in my entire tribe to reach secondary school,” she says with pride. “Many girls gave up or never had the chance. I did, and I won’t waste it.”

Raised by her aunt in Kakuma, Cecilia’s achievements are not only a source of pride for her family but also a symbol of possibility for girls across refugee and host communities.

Through her hands, planting trees in the dust of Turkana, and her voice, speaking up for a better future, Cecilia is sowing the seeds of a legacy, one where conflict gives way to action, displacement to leadership, and despair to hope.