The GLF Youth Project Teams
Regional Youth Networks for Global Transformation
The GLF Youth Project Teams are groups of young passionate and motivated experts from all over the world who collaboratively plan, design and develop projects and activities for the Youth Program while also engaging with various GLF events. This year, the Project Teams are adopting a regional approach with three teams based in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and Asia and the Pacific. The fourth Project Team supports the Youth in Landscapes Initiative with communications.
Meet the 2022 Project Team Members
Africa Project Team
Tijesunimi Olusola Agbaje
Nigeria
Muindi Maingi
Kenya
Kaluki Paul Mutuku
Kenya
Lily Jepkorir Tanui
Kenya
Hannah Kuria
Kenya
Emmanuel Gichuru
Kenya
Godsway Asamoah
Ghana
Ndudu Ndimande
South Africa
Stephen Bright Sakwa
Uganda
Elivis Omoit
Uganda
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Tijesunimi, or T-J to her friends, is a graduate in forestry and wood technology. Her passion for forestry comes from experiencing first-hand challenges related to climate change in her local community. She currently lives in Ibadan, Nigeria. She strongly believes that achieving environmental sustainability depends on the choices we all make daily.
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Muindi is an exuberant software, water and environmental engineer who is changing lives and inspiring a new generation of environmentalists and farmers. Muindi was born in Kenya, and he enjoys working with a team that advances in terms of expertise, mitigation and adaptation actions, socioeconomic development, and innovation.
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Kaluki is a young Kenya-based climate advocate and environmental defender working to champion meaningful youth engagement for climate action. He is an expert in community organizing, climate communication, campaign coordination, environmental education, and much more. He is the Regional Director for Africa at Youth4Nature, focusing mainly on land restoration, reforestation, ecological farming and youth leadership.
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Lily, from Kenya, is a student in environmental engineering and founder of the Tree Growers Association of Kenya, which has planted over 10,000 trees and organized one clean-up. She comes from an Indigenous community called Lembus and is an advocate for environmental conservation and protection. She hopes to gain further skills to make her environmental efforts ripple even further.
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Hannah’s expertise is in resource conservation, with a solid background in natural resource management and agribusiness. She strongly believes that there is a need to invest in the sustainable use of natural resources for future generations. With her passion, she convinced her neighbors to restore degraded sites by planting trees. Her hobbies include tree planting, hiking, bird viewing and community engagements.
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Emmanuel is a young environmentalist from Nairobi, Kenya. He is currently working with CIFOR-ICRAF on youth engagement strategies for the Regreening Africa project. He is also a part of the African Youth Initiative on Climate change. He is also a master’s student in environmental studies with a major in climate change and environmental sustainability) at Kenyatta University.
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Godsway is a versatile and enthusiastic young professional based in Accra, Ghana. He is the Co-founder of the University of Ghana Makerspace, an internet of things researcher and a corporate social media consultant. He is excited to contribute to the activities of the Africa Project Team to the very best of his abilities.
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Ndudu Ndimande is a healthcare worker and Co-founder and project manager at Eco-Clean Cycle, based in Westonaria, Johannesburg, South Africa. She loves to go on trips and explore attraction sites in her city to refresh her ideas and thoughts. She has an eye for the finer things in life and loves adventure.
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Stephen Bright Sakwa is a young restoration champion. He is the Founder of Restoration Safaris Uganda, an ecotour company that invests 15% of its profits into tree planting with smallholder farmers. He believes this is his time to serve young people at a regional level.
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Elivis is the Youth in Landscapes Network Intern for Africa at the Global Landscapes Forum and coordinates the GLF Africa Project Team. He is currently finalizing his studies in conservation forestry and has a strong passion for sustainable finance and community development. He is the Head of Sub-Commission for CIFOR/YIL at the International Forestry Students Association (IFSA) and a member of the Youth in Landscapes Steering Committee representing IFSA.
Latin America and the Caribbean Project Team
Jhonnly Jn-Baptiste
Haiti
Nohora Alejandra Quiguantar
Colombia
Adriana Melgar Gómez
Peru
Analí Bustos
Argentina
Juan Carlos Ramos Barrios
Guatemala
Gaby Baesse
Brazil
Cândida Schaedler
Brazil
Javier Valdivia Navarro
Mexico
Pedro Magalhães (Pê)
Brazil
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Jhonnly has been working on biodiversity and environmental protection since 2017 and has a background in agriculture. He has organized various environmental protection activities in Haiti such as the Race for Oceans, as well as several conferences and webinars with youth. Following his passion for biodiversity, he has been teaching at universities since 2020. He is happiest when shooting natural landscapes.
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Nohora is an Indigenous youth leader from Colombia and defender of the rights of Mother Earth. She is passionate about promoting spaces for Indigenous women and girls. Nohora has a degree in biology and leads the organization Tejiendo Pensamiento (Indigenous women for climate), which seeks to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. She is also a part of the UN Women Feminist Action Coalition for Climate Justice and currently works on on-the-ground initiatives to build resilient communities.
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Adriana is a Peruvian anthropologist specialized in agrarian and rural development. Throughout her professional career, she has strengthened her commitment to securing land rights, promoting environmental justice, and addressing the impacts of the climate emergency on Indigenous groups and local communities. Adriana is particularly interested in building resilient and sustainable agri-food systems in the Global South. She strongly believes that knowledge exchange is key to enriching the dialogue on sustainable landscapes and agri-food system transformation.
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Andrea Violeta Arancibia Alfaro
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Andrea is a Peruvian forest engineer with a double degree master’s in environmental science with a specialization in ecosystems and biodiversity. Her interest in natural resources management led her to write her dissertation on the sustainable commercialization of palm fruits in the Bolivian Amazon.
She has broad experience in sustainable bamboo management and value chains and also has experience in vegetation monitoring, environmental remediation and climate policies. She is motivated to continue working on sustainable solutions for climate change adaptation and mitigation in vulnerable areas.
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Susan Angélica María Manrique Vargas
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Susan lives in Lima, Peru. She has a bachelor's degree in biology and has been working on natural resource management in mountain ecosystems together with rural communities in the Andes. She is a part of the collective Jóvenes Peruanos frente al Cambio Climático (Peruvian Youth against Climate Change). She is interested in the conservation of Andean ecosystems, especially wetlands and peatlands, capacity building, and promoting youth participation in the fight against climate change.
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Jesus is a climate activist, a lover of rurality and the Amazon, and an agroindustrial engineer from the National University of San Marcos. He is a member of the Young Peruvian Against Climate Change (JPCC), YPARD Peru, Thought for Food and YOUNGO. He strongly believes that diverse youths can co-create and care for sustainable landscapes through empathy and a systemic, intersectional, intercultural, questioning and purposeful way of thinking.
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Analí has a bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences and an MSc in Ecology and Nature Conservation. She is currently a Ph.D. student in the Research Group on Ecological Interactions in Agroecosystems. Since 2016, she has been working on a forest restoration project in Argentina named the Monte Alegre Natural Reserve. Her passion is to promote restoration holistically: not only the restoration of ecosystems and environmental services but also that of society's feelings about nature.
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Juan is a manager of finance and policy for EcoAgriculture Partners. His primary focus is landscape finance, landscape governance, and capacity development to support local landscape partnerships. He works closely with the 1000 Landscapes for 1 Billion People initiative. A key area of his work is supporting the field building of landscape finance to expand landscape partnerships. After several years abroad, he is now back home in Guatemala, where he dedicates his time to local regenerative projects, developing small-scale agroforestry, and drinking locally grown coffee.
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Lizeth Margarita Reyes García
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Lizeth is a graduate in renewable natural resource engineering. During her studies, she developed eco-technical brigades for marginalized communities in Mexico. Since graduating, she has focused on using tools for the analysis of environmental components. She is also developing an app in Google Earth Engine to monitor water stress in San Felipe Tejalapam, Etla, Oaxaca, in collaboration with the community laboratory (Comulab), CentroGeo. She is passionate about stewarding natural resources to benefit communities, learning about different landscapes, listening to music and spreading science.
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Gaby is a non-binary transgender person from Natal, Brazil. They are the Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Director for Youth4Nature and part of ASPOAN (Potiguar Friends of Nature Association). They hold a bachelor degree in International Relations and Public Policy Management and a Master degree in Urban and Regional Studies. Gaby upholds knowledge from the Global South, especially from local, Indigenous, Quilombola and dissident people. They work to build a world where nature and people strive together. With a transdisciplinary background, they are involved with many areas, such as education, urban mobility, the right to the city, the LGBTI+ movement, people’s self-determination and queer ecology.
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Brazilian journalist and nature-based solutions enthusiast, passionate about agroforestry systems and regenerative agriculture. Currently, Cândida coordinates the communications of the Secretariat for Innovation, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Sul. She is a volunteer at EmpoderaClima and a social network ambassador for the Global Landscapes Forum in 2022. For four years, she was director and co-founder of Cultivo, the first Brazilian communication agency specializing in family farming and agroecology, an opportunity in which she got to know several stories, cooperatives, agro-industries and real and powerful solutions to the climate emergency. She loves writing, and communications is the tool that most instigates her to face current challenges.
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Javier is an enthusiastic environmentalist and climate activist. He is an engineer in natural resource management, currently studying for a master's degree in forestry sciences. His research focuses on understanding the links between natural resources, social processes, and livelihoods in tropical landscapes. He is currently working on research that enables better integration between social, economic, ecological, and political processes that explore sustainable development alternatives in the central Mexico tropical rainforest .
He has a deep interest in Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Environmental policy, Climate action, Forestry, and Natural resources management. Javier is engaged with Youth4Nature as a global ambassador. In recent years, he worked on climate change adaptation and mitigation projects.
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Pê is a social scientist, development practitioner and an ecossocialist activist from the Brazilian Savannah, the Cerrado ecosystem. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of Brasília (UnB) and a master’s degree in Development Management from the Rühr University Bochum (RUB), having focused his studies on agrarian social movements and the financial inclusion of agroecological producers. He is currently the Youth in Landscapes Network Intern for Latin America and the Caribbean at the GLF and the coordinator of the GLF LAC Project Team.
Asia Pacific Project Team
Damya Srivastava
India
Esha Mitra
India
Abhishek Khadka
Nepal
Frances Camille Rivera
Philippines
Hanz Lawrenz E. Sorolla
Philippines
Wening Ila Idzatilangi
Indonesia
Jin Tanaka
Japan
Sara Mancinelli
Italy
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Damya is concerned about environmental issues including climate change and its impacts on her home country of India. Her concerns brought her to study biology in high school, botany in university and forestry in graduate school. She is excited to be a part of such a diverse and collaborative project team, and she hopes to enrich her network and learn new skills. Her favorite quote is from Theodore Roosevelt: “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
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Esha comes from a small town in eastern India. She has a master’s degree in forestry with a focus on wildlife and habitat management. In addition to her role in YIL, she is the Head of Sub-Commission UNFCCC/UNCCD at the International Forestry Students' Association (IFSA). She is a researcher in post-forest fire ecology and is passionate about habitat restoration and biodiversity management. She is taking her steps into climate activism, and she aspires to work for Indigenous people who are protecting mother nature sustainably, and youth and children, who will be the future protectors of the Earth.
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Abhishek, or Avi (Abbe) to his friends, is from Dharanand, Nepal, and has a background in food science and technology. He has worked as a programme officer for Rural Reconstruction Nepal, focusing on post-disaster earthquake projects, and as a programme manager for Baliyo Nepal, a nutrition initiative. He is passionate about climate change, nutrition, agriculture, forestry, landscape restoration and business. He is also a country representative for YPARD Nepal and Programme Officer for YPARD Asia Pacific. He loves to travel to different remote places and is interested in Indigenous lifestyles.
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Camille Rivera is a Co-Founder and Director of Oceanus Conservation. She has worked in ocean conservation for more than seven years, with a focus on coastal management and mangrove conservation around the Philippines. Her previous work includes developing community-based mangrove restoration programs and ecotourism, facilitating youth marine camps and ocean activities for the local communities. She was also the 2021 Wetland Restoration Steward with the Global Landscapes Forum and Youth in Landscapes Initiative (YIL).
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Hanz is a student in forestry with a focus on environmental management and conservation. He is an active member of one of the local committees of IFSA. He became interested in the field of forestry because of his active participation in environmental campaigns and seminars in high school. He chose his degree program based on his belief that he can do more to help conserve the environment, and he feels that being a part of the Global Landscapes Forum is a great step to encourage others to do the same.
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Wening combines her passion and her education in forestry. Her recent experience as a tutor, project manager, commissioner, and associate researcher has enabled her to carry out collaborative research with GIS to create a better society for the future. She believes that with collaboration, everything will be better.
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As a member of YOUNGO, Jin participates in the activities of Local Conferences of Youth (LCOY), while serving in a youth-led non-governmental organization to promote environmental conservation activities, particularly climate change, both nationally and internationally. As an observer at COP26 of the UNFCCC, he has been involved in advocacy on a wide range of scale-based climate change activities. Jin has also worked on climate change action and adaptation both domestically and internationally, mainly in the Asia-Pacific region.
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Sara is an environmentalist and passionate about climate justice. She is always looking for alternative and inclusive ways of deconstructing realities to preserve the beauty and diversity of our landscapes. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Studies and an MSc in environmental policy and sustainable development diplomacy. Sara is currently the Youth In Landscapes Network Intern for the GLF and the Coordinator of the Asia-Pacific Project Team.
Communications and Outreach Project Team
Isabelle Claire Dela Paz
Philippines
Stephen Ofori Amo
Ghana
Sagar Koirala
Nepal
Raymond Origbo
Nigeria
Janet Chemitei
Kenya
Oluwatosin Ayobami Ogunsola
Nigeria
Lameck Quila
Tanzania
Hyginus Laari
Ghana
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Isabelle is a junior forestry student specializing in urban forestry, driven by her interest in urban agroforestry and climate change mitigation. She is currently the Internal Councilor of the International Forestry Students' Association (IFSA). Isabelle is also the Vice President of the Association of Filipino Forestry Students – UPLB (AFFS-UPLB). She spearheaded the 2022 Philippine Forestry Youth Summit, which is a national conference for Filipino students in celebration of the 2022 International Day of Forests.
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Stephen is a conceptual and documentary photographer, videographer, graphic designer, and art director from Ghana. He is the communications officer for the Ghana REDD+ Secretariat of the Forestry Commission of Ghana. His creative journey has played a significant role in showcasing the state of Ghana’s forests and a call to action to secure it. He has documented and designed materials for forest restoration activities, monitoring and evaluation of project impacts, international climate change events, and social media activism. With over five years of experience, he believes his role is to teach and learn to make our vision a reality.
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Sagar is a youth climate activist and food system champion. He is currently working as an agriculture instructor in a government school in rural Nepal. Heloves volunteering for a greater cause and enjoys being involved with organizations and networks. Sagar recently represented Nepal at COP26 and is looking forward to joining COP27 in Egypt this year. He loves traveling to new places, learning new things and getting engaged in community projects.
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Raymond is a forestry student in Nigeria and an active member of the International Forestry Student Association (IFSA). He is a nature and climate change enthusiast. He has designed projects to tackle plastic pollution, reduce cigarette butts on the streets of Andalucia in Spain, and slash carbon footprints, as well as environmental education. Raymond has also contributed to projects to teach young local children about plastic pollution, organize ocean plastic clean-ups, and create awareness among Indigenous community members.
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Christian is a passionate young researcher with a strong interest in media content production. He believes in the strength of social media as an effective channel for reaching wide audiences and raising awareness about global pressing issues such as climate change and the biodiversity crisis. Christian also enjoys playing basketball and reading a lot.
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Chemitei is a writer and environmentalist who loves telling stories from a personal lens. She is an environmental planning and management graduate and volunteers with organizations that focus on landscape restoration, and social and climate justice. She is currently volunteering with Threading Change as the Africa Regional Coordinator to transform the fashion industry to be circular and ethical through education, policy, research and storytelling.
Chemitei is passionate about stammering awareness, mental health and body acceptance. She loves spending time crocheting, reading and nurturing house plants.
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Oluwatosin is a climate ation strategist leading change on agri-food systems, environmental peacebuilding, landscape restoration and inclusive participation to build resiliency within communities globally. He has a bachelor’s degree in crop, soil and pest management and a master’s degree in soil fertility and plant nutrition.
Oluwatosin is on a mission to enhance food security, ensure zero hunger and eliminate food waste while conserving biodiversity and protecting the environment.
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Lameck is a photographer and environmental enthusiast with a great passion for issues related to gender equality and creating opportunities for all. In 2018, he won the GLF and YIL award in Nairobi for an outstanding photographer from Africa.
His camera is his best tool to communicate different messages to communities. He is currently working as a digital communication officer in an NGO named Jambo For Development. Lameck prides himself on showing the world what his community is going through via video and photo storytelling.
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Hyginus is a Youth Communications Officer for the Global Landscapes Forum and the coordinator of the YIL Communications and Outreach project team. He has a background in health science education and is a passionate environmental health advocate. In 2018, he was named a finalist in the UN Environment Young Champions of the Earth Prize competition. Hyginus is a social media content creator and an advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals. He sees advocacy as a medium that can foster positive environmental change.
Project Team Partners
GENERAL INQUIRIES
Pê Magalhães: p.mourao@cifor-icraf.org
GLF Youth Program Officer
For any doubts specific to the Africa Project Team, kindly reach out to Kiptoo Chemoiwo at w.chemoiwo@cifor-icraf.org and for any matters associated with the Communications Project Team please reach out to Hyginus Laari at h.laari@cifor-icraf.org.