ITRI Visionary Young Leaders Awards 2024 Recipients

Olumide Idowu, Nigeria 

Olumide is the co-founder of the International Climate Change Development Initiative, to bring awareness of climate change issues and address development disparities. He also holds positions as the UNDP Small Grants Program's Youth Focal Point in Nigeria and the Youth Lead Author of the Global Environmental Outlook. He wishes for a future where compassion, understanding, and unity guide our actions, leading to a world filled with peace, justice, and prosperity for all. Olumide joins many of the UNFCCC COP meetings and in 2016 he joined the Global Peace Initiative of Women in Marrakech, representing Nigeria at COP22

Olumide IDOWU is a climate change activist from evelopment. With over 13 years of experience in climate chNigeria who promotes environmental awareness and a balanced approach to environmental protection and dange activism, he engages both younger and older generations through his involvement in climate change organizations and social media, where he is known as 'Mr. Climate.' 

Amalia Colon-Nava, USA 

I am a farmer and multi-disciplinary artist that loves to move!  The majority of my formal education is in dance performance.  My grandmother was a farmer in Mexico before migrating to the United States and my Dad followed suit in his own way by becoming a biochemist.

I grew up playing in his community garden plots and eating ripe tomatoes and sugar snap peas off the vine.  In 2021 myself and two partners incorporated Dirtbaby Farm LLC.  Dirtbaby Farm is an urban farm and worker-owned cooperative growing vegetables and herbs for our community of neighbors, artists, mothers, and children in Northwest Philadelphia. We aim to increase access to fresh, local produce that is affordable, delicious, and thoughtfully grown. 

Dirtbaby’s food production supports three programs: Giftbaby postpartum meal deliveries to new mothers made from the farm’s fresh produce, a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, and a farm-focused artist residency.

I am also the project manager of the Resistance Garden Project with the Painted Bride Arts center in Philadelphia.   In this role, I have worked with several urban farms/gardens, artists and foragers to expand agricultural knowledge and our relationship with the land.  I believe urban agricultural projects help heal communities  and their relationship to land.  This is work that must happen on both a personal and political level in order to save our planet from the existential threat of climate change.  I recently traveled to Mexico to volunteer and learn from other urban farms but also explore my own heritage, history, and family’s migration journey.  I am now sharing this experience through a series of educational workshops and performances.  

Leonardo de Lima Noronha, Brazil 

He is also a member of the region's seed collectors' group, collecting forest seeds. He has been working to introduce agroforestry to small rural producers in the countryside, public schools and Favelas. In his community at Sítio Annapurna, he coordinated the planting of over 4,000 trees in recent years in agroforestry systems, turning the area into a true agroforestry school, where other farmers and youth from all over the world can visit and learn about not only agroforestry, but community life and food sovereignty. In 2022, he started planting indigenous Guarani corn of the Araponga people, from Paraty, that had almost disappeared. The Araponga peoples had this seed for over 300 years but the tradition was being lost as there was no one left to carry it on. Leonardo and his cooperative obtained these seeds from the spiritual head of the tribe along with the responsibility of being its guardians. Leonardo and his team have been planting these seeds for three years now, harvesting and multiplying these seeds. The corn is traditional, heirloom, and a special colorful corn. Thanks to his work the Guarani corn is becoming abundant

Leonardo, 36 years old, was born and raised in the countryside of Southern Minas Gerais. His grandfather has been growing coffee for 30 years, and Leonardo has been working on the land since he was young. He is a great advocate for agroforestry systems in rural areas of São Paulo's interior. He developed an organic coffee brand that demonstrates in practice what is possible to achieve to inspire and encourage other coffee producers in the area to shift to organic production along with native tree planting. As a member of the Agroforestry Network of the Paraíba Valley, São Paulo State, he has been working with agroforestry systems alongside the settlements of the Landless Agrarian Reform Movement. again. 

Chloé Bernardino, France/Portugal 

If activists and changemakers begin to deeply question their beliefs, values and habits, as well as let go of societal conditioning  -  being able to express their true and authentic selves would translate into a much greater ability to benefit life. How we are able to embody inner peace and love, will affect our ability to do the needed work.  Chloé currently works at Mouvement Colibris, (The Hummingbird Movement) an ecological NGO in France, founded by the late Pierre Rabhi, the father of the French ecological farming movement.  She is the Project Manager of their Youth Program, that has organized more than 25 meetings across France, bringing together the voices of more than 1000 young people to listen to ideas and tap their incredible potential to be leaders in their own communities. Through the forums and meetings in various cities and regions they engage young people in discussions on critical issues facing society in the spirit of cooperation and respect for life. 

Chloe Bernardino is a graduate of the University For Peace in Costa Rica and  studied at the Earth Charter International headquarters.  She studied Peace and Conflict and the Earth Charter course on ‘Leadership, Sustainability and Ethics.  Her educational journey prompted a deep introspection of her own life, questioning the values she held, accessing her deepest feelings and exploring the inner wisdom that would develop her character and resilience.  This led to looking at people who inspired her and how they view the world. She began to understand that the dynamic she experienced inwardly was directly related to what she experienced in her outer life.  She was aware of the challenges facing humanity and the transition that is desperately needed in human development, activities, consumption and waste and felt after her self-exploration that by looking inward, we may come to a set of solutions. 

Hakim Yohanes Paromi, South Sudan

Hakim Yohanes is from Malakal in South Sudan.  During the outbreak of civil war in Sudan in 2013, Hakim who was then 27 years old, fled with his family to the West Bank of the River Nile to find safety and a secure place to settle.  During the ceasefire that followed between the conflicting parties, Hakim secretly made his way back to Malakal to the Protection of Civilians site known as the UNMISS Camp. It was here that he began engaging young people and the local community in dialogues, training the displaced groups in life skills, conflict management and peacebuilding, as well as providing workshops on physical health and psychological wellbeing during a time of war.  Hakim Yohanes holds a degree in Humanitarian and Conflict Studies from the University of Juba as well as Sciences in General Forestry from the Upper Nile University.  

Currently he works as project field coordinator for UNYDA. This has added to his experience and skills in bettering communities in South Sudan.  Here he oversees and conducts activities and projects on behalf of UNYDA liaising with the local leaders on critical issues and providing information to government authorities on needs of the people.  In addition to his educational degrees and years of field work experience, he has taken trainings in human rights, gender equality, advocating for children of war, humanitarian aid and logistics, as well as ways to monitor and survey household health in local regions.   Hakim Yohanes continues his work to inspire other young leaders and his wish is that one day South Sudan may experience a durable peace and prosperity.

Valeria Medrano Álvarez, Costa Rica 

There are two countries that have marked the way I see the world and lead my life; Bolivia, where I was born at almost 3,625 meters above sea level and Costa Rica, where I grew up very close to sea level. I am a person who seeks to work for the common good and care for the community of life, which has led me to work in informal settlements around the country with the organization TECHO Costa Rica, with the aim of seeking comprehensive solutions to the problems of poverty with the help of the inhabitants of the communities and volunteers.

I am currently part of the Sustainable Belén Association where I have participated in the creation and facilitation of eco-spirituality and climate change workshops for communities. I also participate in the Climate Policy Advocacy Committee, made up of various environmental organizations in the country, which seeks to create spaces for citizen participation for oversight and impact on the country’s climate agenda. Through this committee, we presented the first legal action on climate change in Costa Rica, which reaffirmed the importance of transparency and access to information on these issues. 

I am an Earth Charter Young Leader and Educator, a graduate of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation’s 2022 Change Agents program and am currently studying the Empathy Activist Program focused on Non-Violent Communication of the Conversable Foundation. I have a dream of building an organization that works in communities around the country creating projects to transform the way we inhabit the planet and relate to nature and ourselves, with a focus on deep ecology, human rights and economic justice. 

Ana Elisa Perez Quintero, Puerto Rico

Ana Elisa has been an activist for environmental and food justice in Puerto Rico since she was thirteen, organizing for the protection of the Northeastern Ecological Corridor from megadevelopment; facilitating and setting up farmer exchanges and community gardens through the islands of Puerto Rico, Haití and Dominican Republic. She has participated and led efforts in Proyecto ENLACE del Caño Martín Peña, Martín Peña Land Trust, Boricuá Organization of Ecological Agriculture among other grassroots initiatives. 

Ana Elisa is a farmer and co-organizer/ founder of La Colmena Cimarrona in Vieques, Puerto Rico. La Colmena Cimarrona (Maroon Hive) practices community based agroecology and beekeeping growing food sovereignty in the archipelago of Puerto Rico.