Cultivating a Culture of Sustainability: Youth-Led Environmental Action
For the longest time, the climate conversation in our communities has revolved around plastics. Bottles in the ocean. Bags clogging drains. And while plastic waste is a real threat, it has often overshadowed an equally urgent, less talked-about crisis, organic waste.
Every day, food waste piles up in backyards, alleys, idle plots, unfinished buildings and markets attracting pests, spreading disease, and releasing harmful gases into the air. But because it disappears faster than plastic, it’s rarely seen as the bigger problem.
At Mila, we saw things differently.
We listened to what our communities were saying that yes, awareness is important, but people are tired of big climate words with no direct impact. They believe in solutions they can see, touch, taste, and benefit from something that improves health, creates jobs, grows food, and restores dignity.
So we asked: what if waste could do more?
What if the same food scraps that pollute our spaces could become the foundation for something powerful, something alive?
That question led us to the Black Soldier Fly (BSF), and to a circular solution rooted in nature, community, and possibility. So how do we get the community onboard?
In Kadzandani and Bamburi, located in Nyali sub-county, Mombasa, a new kind of leadership is emerging.
Youth-driven, community-rooted, and environmentally conscious. Our vision is rooted in a simple truth, when children learn, homes change.
Our flagship educational program, Kitaa Climate, is designed to catalyze that transformation starting with the youngest members of society.
The Problem: A Growing Ecological Divide
Both the County Government and Kenya’s national environmental bodies have introduced policies and campaigns aimed at improving waste management and climate resilience as well as the rollout of the Climate Change Act 2023 amendment from the 2016 Act demonstrate a growing recognition of the crisis.
Despite Mombasa’s vulnerability to climate change, it continues to suffer from poor waste infrastructure, limited access to green spaces, and insufficient environmental education. Young people often inherit these challenges, with few avenues for agency or voice in climate-related decision-making.
Mila works with communities and schools to introduce environmental education in fun, accessible, and practical ways. Through eco-games, green space challenges, and storytelling projects, students not only grasp the urgency of environmental care they become proud stewards of it.
We’ve seen students return home to teach their families about composting, tree planting, and waste sorting. Over time, these actions create ripple effects spreading from school to household to neighborhood.
We partner with local schools like Pwani Junior Academy to bring waste education and nature-based learning directly to the classroom. But we don’t stop at theory. Kids learn about Black Soldier Fly (BSF) larvae turning food waste into fertilizer, and then head out to their school gardens to plant using frass donated by Mila. They don’t just learn, they see, touch, and grow change.
Youth-Led Green Spaces: Built with Soil, Sustained with Knowledge
When you ask most people what climate change is, the answers come quick: rising sea levels, melting glaciers, cutting down trees. It’s all true but it’s also just a part of the story. In many communities, especially those like ours in Mombasa, climate change feels distant. What’s harder to see is how it shows up in our everyday lives. In the waste piled near our homes, flooding during rains, rising cost of food, or the unexpected illnesses caused by poor sanitation.
Climate isn’t just about the weather. It’s about our health, our economy, our streets, our food and most importantly, the choices we make every day.
At Mila, we’re working to shift that narrative. We believe that solutions to climate change should be visible, local, and directly improve people’s lives. That’s why we’ve embraced the Black Soldier Fly (BSF), a humble insect that is doing big things.
Every day, we collect food waste from homes, markets, and eateries waste that would otherwise rot in the open and release harmful gases into the atmosphere. Instead, this waste becomes food for our BSF larvae. In return, they give us two incredible things: a protein-rich animal feed and organic fertilizer (frass). The feed supports local poultry farmers, and the fertilizer has helped us turn bare patches into green spaces right in the heart of the community.
Together with students and local youth groups, we’ve co-created three thriving community green spaces turning homes, idle plots into gardens nurtured with organic frass fertilizer from our Black Soldier Fly project. These spaces provide beauty, ownership, learning opportunities, and a sense of local pride.
By working with communities and schools to introduce environmental education in fun, accessible, and practical ways that not only help grasp the urgency of environmental care but also become proud stewards .
Children now understand life can come from waste, where and what fertilizer is, not in a packet from a shop, but from natures very own. Youths get involved not just in digging, but in designing, planting, and protecting. Through BSF, we’ve seen climate action become something tangible. Not just a global emergency but a daily act of care, a way to grow food, create jobs, and protect our families from disease.
We’ve also seen something else: change happens fastest when people can see the results. When kids play near a green space that used to be a dumping site. When a school grows vegetables using our frass. When a mother feeds her chicken with affordable, local protein.
This is what climate action looks like when it’s grounded in community.
And this is just the beginning.
