Youth Leading Environmental Change

YLEC has its background as a 2012 environmental youth engagement workshop series developed collaboratively by a group of researchers, representatives of environmental organizations and young environmental leaders in Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, India, Uganda, and the United States. In Uganda, the lead researcher was Prof. Frank Mugagga under Makerere University. After the workshops, the YLEC youth in Uganda met regularly to act on environmental degradation. They collaborated with other organisations to pass on environmental skills. In 2013, YLEC worked with Centre for Research in Energy Conservation (CREEC) to construct and train residents in Butambala district in making energy saving stoves. Between 2015 and 2019, YLEC youth collaborated with Joint Energy and Environment Projects (JEEP) and the Seniors without Borders (SwB) Denmark to implement the Environmental Awareness Project (EAP) where they trained over 600 youth in different environmental skills. In 2017, was registered formally as a company Limited by Guarantee with a mandate of working as a Non for Profit Organisation. YLEC Vision: “To be the leading green organization in Africa engaging the youth in tackling environmental degradation and promoting environmental sustainability”. YLEC Mission: “To involve the youth from diverse fields in solving environmental problems geared towards environmental sustainability by doing research, imparting knowledge and capacity building in the society”. In 2018, YLEC implemented the Clean Environment Initiative Project (CEIP) with JEEP and SwB Denmark as partners. The lessons learnt from the CEIP were later used to execute a much wider project CEIP 2 in 20 secondary schools and communities Soroti district and city which ended in June, 2023. These projects were executed thanks to CISU. YLEC Activities Waste management Tree planting and nursery bed establishment Food security approaches Sustainable energy solutions Advocacy