Across Fort Portal Tourism City and the surrounding rural areas, youth face significant challenges. With limited formal employment opportunities and increasing environmental pressures, many young people feel trapped between unemployment and the harsh realities of climate change.
But a new generation is emerging—youth eco-entrepreneurs who are turning environmental challenges into opportunities for growth and innovation.
Take Brian, a 23-year-old from Karambi, who grew tired of watching piles of agricultural waste burn along the roadside. After attending a climate-smart innovation workshop, he learned how to convert banana peels, maize stalks, and sawdust into eco-friendly briquettes. Today, his small briquette-making business not only generates income but also helps reduce deforestation in his community. Families now use his clean-burning briquettes for cooking instead of cutting down more trees for firewood.
Then there’s Ruth, a vibrant young woman from Bukuku who saw an opportunity to address poor sanitation in schools. Using skills she learned in WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) training, she started constructing affordable pit latrines with handwashing stations. Not only has she improved health standards in her village, but she’s now hiring other young women to join her in scaling up this project to neighboring schools.
These stories are no longer rare. Across the region, youth are realizing that they don’t have to wait for external donors or government programs to create change.
Through training, mentorship, and small startup capital, these young people are building businesses that solve real problems. Eco-entrepreneurship is providing jobs, protecting the environment, and creating a ripple effect of leadership within their communities.
The future is bright when youth are at the center of climate solutions—not as victims, but as innovators.