How Amara turned a school garden into a national reforestation pledge
What started as twelve seedlings behind a classroom is now a policy document on the Minister of Environment's desk.
Amara was sixteen when she planted the first twelve seedlings behind her secondary school in Abidjan. There was no plan, no budget, no permission, just a hose, a borrowed shovel, and a hunch that her classmates would show up if she did.
Two years later, the school garden has become a 4-hectare community nursery, and Amara has helped draft a national reforestation pledge that her Minister of Environment will table at the next regional summit. This is the story of how a quiet, repeatable project grew into a policy moment, told mostly in her own words.
The first lesson, she says, was that people don't follow ideas, they follow the person who keeps showing up on Saturday morning. The second lesson was that paperwork is a kind of protest. The third lesson was that mentors who answer your WhatsApp at 11pm are worth more than any grant.
We pair every YPL leader with a senior advisor in their region for exactly this reason. Amara's mentor, a former forestry director, walked her through her first ministry meeting line by line. By the third meeting, Amara was the one running the room.
