Patience Nabukalu

Patience Nabukalu is a passionate climate, gender, and human rights activist from Uganda, and the founder of Youth Empowerment Initiative Uganda. As an organizer with Fridays for Future Uganda, she leads grassroots efforts to combat wetland degradation, plastic pollution, and fossil fuel expansion. Central to her advocacy is a bold campaign against the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), a 1,444 km project backed by French oil giant TOTAL, which threatens critical ecosystems, displaces communities, and would significantly worsen carbon emissions in the region. For over five years,

Patience has mobilized schools, communities, and international audiences through protests, clean-ups, and social media to raise awareness and resist environmental exploitation in the Global South. Her work has contributed to several banks and insurers pulling out of the EACOP project, reinforcing her belief that climate justice is inseparable from human rights—and that people must always come before profit.