U  gandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate (born November 15, 1996) was the first climate activist in her country to join well-known Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg’s Fridays For Future group—a youth-led and youth-organized movement that started in August 2018 to protest against the lack of action on the climate crisis by world leaders.

Nakate also founded Rise Up—a climate movement to help amplify African voices for climate change. She is dedicated to raising awareness of our current dangerous climate conditions and the further perils we’ll experience without a dedicated focus on change by all countries, companies, and people worldwide.

Another area of focus by Nakate is her campaign Save Congo Rainforest. It addresses the massive deforestation and deleterious effects of such actions on the entire planet— examples being: loss of habitat for animals and plant species, increased greenhouse gases, and dysfunction in the water cycle leading to soil erosion. This campaign has also spread beyond Africa to raise awareness in Europe.