Environment and Climate
A climate cinema that kept finding young inventors
Sadiya Adado grew up in northern Nigeria and founded United Youth for Environmental Sustainability to take climate education out of classrooms and into underserved communities, where the team began finding young inventors no one was looking for.
"People often assume that innovation comes from well-funded labs or big cities," Sadiya Adado says. "My experience has taught me something very different."
Adado, a civil and structural engineer from Northern Nigeria, grew up there, where she says some of the communities most affected by environmental challenges are also the ones least represented in conversations about solutions. "That's why I started United Youth for Environmental Sustainability (U-YES)," she says.
“Never underestimate the power of your lived experience, because some of the world’s most powerful solutions come from places the world has overlooked.”
Sadiya Adado
U-YES takes environmental education beyond classrooms. Its Outdoor Community Climate Change Cinema brings documentaries, discussions and climate conversations in local languages directly into underserved communities.
"But something unexpected happened along the way," she says.
The cinema travels from community to community. Along the way, the team began meeting young people building solutions with whatever materials they could find. A secondary school student designed a hybrid system that generates electricity from both solar and wind energy. Another young inventor built a smart signal stick to help people who are blind navigate more safely. Many others, she says, "remain invisible simply because no one is looking for them."
She has also met young people who have never heard the term climate change, she says, despite living with its effects every day. So U-YES now combines environmental education with finding hidden talent and sharing their stories. "I believe awareness inspires action, and action creates innovation," she says.
She describes herself as a climate justice activist and youth leader, and wants a future where no young person is overlooked because of where they were born, the language they speak or the resources they lack.
"If my work has taught me anything, it's this: talent is universal, but opportunity is not," she says. "Sometimes all a great idea needs is one person willing to believe in it. I want U-YES to be that first believer."