Patricia Mumbua Kombo is a passionate environmentalist and is founder of the PaTree Initiative. She was awarded the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Land Hero award and was named the 2021 Youth of the Year in the Environment category. Patricia is a climate change adaptation master’s student at the University of Nairobi. Besides championing climate change, she advocates for sustainable land use by promoting indigenous knowledge and practices with the aim of ending hunger, malnutrition, and poverty in rural communities. Her goal is to give young generations and women a voice by training them on climate change resilience through activities such as tree growing, organic farming kitchen gardens, and forest conservation. She is known as a tree planter on a mission and so far, has visited 15 schools and established environmental clubs, worked with pupils in setting kitchen gardens and restoration of degraded landscapes, and planted over 50,000 trees.

IVLP Impact Award Project: Promoting Education for Sustainable Development through Climate Literacy Programs, Environmental Clubs and Climate Hackathons

The school climate literacy program promoted stewardship, climate champions, green jobs, ventures into climate science, and building resilience and innovation in the climate sphere. The program involved activities like climate hackathons whereby students solved a climate crisis in their region and offered solutions that promoted adaptation and mitigation in their communities. The students showcased the establishment of best practices like kitchen gardens, sustainable land use practices and recycling. The hackathons formed a critical evaluation base to understand the level of knowledge on climate issues and how the young generation is well-equipped to adapt and build resilience. It also created a link between the attainment of the other sustainable development goals and how each goal is connected with climate change. The program worked with 5 schools in Makueni County targeting a population of about 5,000 students and teachers.

"My goal is to raise a generation that loves and understands nature and that is confident and brave to solve the climate crisis through innovations." - Patricia Kombo

IVLP Exchange Experience 

Patricia was a participant in the IVLP Project The Climate Crisis: Working Together for Future Generations, organized by the U.S. Department of State and Meridian International Center.

Patricia's exchange experience led to the development of her IVLP Impact Award Project: "The idea of hackathon was borne after visiting the Wilkes Center for climate science and policy at the University of Utah and after interacting with Project Zero, Portland General Electric on a successful Environmental program. With the experience from IVLP, I am confident that the hackathon will be the beginning of climate literacy and environmental stewardships for future generations."

U.S. Communities Visited

Washington, DC; Miami, FL; Portland, OR; Salt Lake City, UT

"Throughout my IVLP, I witnessed how climate literacy was mainstream in all sectors and how research plays a critical role in equipping the future generations." - Patricia Kombo

Country: Kenya

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