The YouthMADE Festival is a global celebration of youth creativity and innovation that invites students, educators, and advocates to showcase youth-led work. Leading up to the 2026 YouthMADE Festival, we are sharing a series of stories highlighting youth creators and changemakers around the world who are putting their hands, hearts, and minds toward projects and causes they care about.
My name is Adam, and I am the executive director of Empowering Futures Initiatives, a youth- led educational organization based in Yobe State of Nigeria. I am deeply committed to environmental sustainability and community development. As a youth leader in Abbari, I focus on practical action that empowers myself and fellow youths to improve our community’s future—especially through education, because educating children is building the future.
Abbari, in Yobe State, Nigeria, is a community facing severe environmental challenges like lack of access to clean water, drought, and desertification. The people of Abbari rely heavily on agriculture, which is increasingly threatened by climate change.
I am working on the Abbari Community Solar Borehole and Garden Initiative, which uses clean water from a solar-powered borehole to support a climate-smart, integrated garden. We grow climate-resilient tree seedlings in seedling bags alongside fruits and vegetables suited to our climate, such as tomatoes, onions, peppers, spinach, eggplants, and okra.
Multiple sprouting plants from the garden initiative.
The goal of the project is to nurture at least 6,000 tree seedlings and various vegetables and fruits over the next year. These seedlings will be nurtured to healthy maturity and then distributed free to schools, hospitals, and other community sites. The aim is to combat climate change, strengthen local ecosystems, provide shade and wind protection, and improve nutrition and food security in our community.
My collaborators include my teammates Hajara, Aliyu, and Muhammad, who assist in planting, garden maintenance, and community outreach. Local youths and community members contribute by protecting seedlings, sharing knowledge, and taking part in daily garden activities.
The European Union funded the solar borehole which provides a critical water source, while the YouthMADE Festival Amplify Grant from Digital Promise supported us with funding to buy seeds, tools, and materials essential for establishing and expanding the garden.
Student attending the community garden.
Since receiving the Amplify Grant, we were able to acquire vital resources such as seeds, soil amendments, tools, fencing to protect our garden, and water piping from the solar-powered borehole to ensure effective irrigation. We also established productive vegetable beds for tomatoes, onions, peppers, spinach, eggplants, and okra. We are now growing 1,080 tree seedlings in seedling bags within the garden, and our goal is to raise a total of 6,000 seedlings over the next six months, further improving food security and helping our community become more resilient to climate change.
Community input has played a huge role. Elders, farmers, and local youth shared advice on the best species to plant, how to space the seedlings, handle pests naturally, and manage the dry season. Their feedback helped us adjust our watering schedule and choose the most suitable crops and tree species for our soil and climate. This collaboration has made our work stronger and more meaningful.
In the future, we hope to expand the project to cover more land and grow even more food and trees for the community. We want to distribute seedlings to schools, health centers, and surrounding villages and share training with more young people so others can replicate what we’ve done.
Working on this project has taught me valuable skills in seed germination, garden management, and sustainable agriculture. I have learned the importance of patience and consistency, especially in watering, protecting, and nurturing seedlings to ensure their healthy growth. I was surprised to learn just how much small changes in everyday care—like the timing and amount of water or careful protection from pests—can dramatically affect the survival rate of young plants.
My project gave me purpose and real skills like problem solving and critical thinking by working on something that helps my community. It showed me how creativity and teamwork are important for solving real-world problems. I advise teachers to support students’ ideas and connect learning to real life. To other students, I say start small, be patient, and believe you can make a difference.
With this grant, I wanted to turn our ideas into tangible action that would improve food security, empower young people, and strengthen our resilience against climate change. By distributing seedlings widely and involving youth as climate advocates, we hope to restore the environment, support communities, and build lasting resilience across the entire region.
