On 18th July 2025, the Ghana Youth Environmental Movement (GYEM) organized the Youth Adaptation Networking Event at the Youth Opportunity and Transformation in Africa (YOTA) center. The event brought together 17 participants to learn, reflect, plan, and share progress made since the Youth Adaptation Forum event. Several participants described how the forum had inspired new initiatives, including youth training programmes, expanded community outreach, and clean-up campaigns in underserved areas. Participants had the pleasure of reconnecting through a “know your friend” activity.
When we asked participants what they had taken away from the previous Forum and how they had acted on it, the answers were both bold and deeply community-centered.
One participant shared that they had launched training for young professionals, focusing on helping early-stage entrepreneurs develop structured, environmentally responsible businesses. Another revealed their organization’s relocation to a new space to be more accessible to community members, enabling deeper engagement and action. Health advocacy, sanitation awareness, and climate sensitization campaigns were also among the inspiring updates shared.
“We started sensitization on clean community initiatives, something we hadn’t prioritized before the Forum,” said one attendee.
When asked, what they’d do with GHC10,000 as a trivial question, participants answered as follows:
1. Young professional training: We’ll use the money to train young professionals to align their businesses with climate and environmental issues and also to structure their businesses to solve environmental problems.
2. Environmental Clean-up: We’ll distil gutters and clean drainages and have communal labour.
3. Beach allocation and clean up: We wish every portion of the coast in Ghana would be allocated to a particular NGO/CSO who are interested in beach clean-up so that two or more NGOs don’t go to the same location every time.
4. Education on Climate: I will teach children in schools about the environment and how to keep it clean.
5. Mentoring and educating: Educate and mentor young ones on climate, environment, and finance.
The event ended with a debate on whether there are alternatives provided for single-use plastics. Suggestions made were leaves for food, lunch boxes, reusable bottles, and bowls. Some also argued that when the SUP is banned, the alternatives will be exhausted, and it won’t be enough to supply.
