Mombasa Student Receives International
Environmental Leader Award
Hope Mugambi, 23, Honoured for Project that Recycles Discarded
Plastic Bags and Support Incomes of Local Women
Leverkusen (Germany) / Nairobi, 10 November 2012 – A Mombasa student has received an
international youth award for her environmental efforts from the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) and Bayer.
Mwanyuma Hope Mugambi, 23, a 3rd year student in Environmental Studies and Community
Development at Kenyatta University, Mombasa, was one of three winners of the 2012 Young
Environmental Leader Award.
Two other young people from Costa Rica and Vietnam were also honoured for their work in promoting
sustainable development.
Hope’s project, which converts waste plastic bags into laptop cases, purses and homeware, aims to
provide a sustainable solution to the environmental, health and flooding hazards of discarded polythene
bags in the Mombasa area.
Along with the projects of her co-winners, Hope’s initiative was judged to display the greatest innovation,
sustainability, and potential impact out of a pool of around 50 sustainable development initiatives run by
young people from 19 developing and emerging countries.
The award ceremony came on the final day of the 2012 Young Environmental Envoy Programme in
Leverkusen, Germany.
Beverly Kendi Nkonge (16) from Riara School, Nairobi, also represented Kenya during the week-long
programme, which provides young, green innovators with insights into the latest technology being applied
to waste management, resource efficiency, renewable energy and other critical environmental issues.
As part of Hope’s award-winning project, local women are trained to sew bags, table mats and other mats
from plastic bags that are collected from around the community. The projects expand the skills of the local
women, many of whom come from marginalized communities, and support their income through the sale
of the products.
Adriana Maria Villalobos Delgado, a 20-year-old chemistry student at the Universidad Nacional in
Heredia, Costa Rica, was honoured for her project that reuses “waste” shrimp shells to extract active
ingredients for the production of medicines. The project aims to find more sustainable models for the
shrimp industry - one of Costa Rica’s most important economic sectors.
The third co-winner is 20-year-old Dang Huyn Mai Anh, a business administration student from Ho Chi
Minh City, Vietnam. She has developed a novel approach towards reducing energy consumption and
resource use in private households. Based on extensive research, she successfully designed, produced
and distributed a “Green Handbook for Housewives”. The guide also includes information on economic
savings that households can make from using resources more efficiently.
An expert panel from UNEP, the UNEP / Wuppertal Institute Collaborating Centre on Sustainable
Consumption and Production (CSCP), Tunza Magazine, (UNEP’s publication for young people), and
Bayer selected the three winners.
Each winner receives a tailor-made package worth EUR 1,000 to support and expand their projects.
“All three projects offer innovative and sound solutions to major environmental challenges of today,” said
Dirk Frenzel, responsible for environmental issues at Bayer Communications, and a member of the jury.
“The winners represent the smart knowledge and extraordinary commitment of all Bayer Young
Environmental Envoys.”
“From waste management to resource efficiency and awareness campaigns, both the winners of the
Bayer Young Environmental Leader Award, and all of the 2012 Young Environmental Envoys, clearly
demonstrate that young people across the world have the motivation, creativity and knowledge to provide
concrete solutions to the world’s most critical environmental challenges,” said Achim Steiner, UN UnderSecretary General and UNEP Executive Director.
“With the right kind of support, these innovative projects can be scaled up and replicated elsewhere, thus
providing an important contribution to an inclusive, low carbon, resource efficient green economy, which
is vital if the world is to meet the resource needs of a global population of 9 billion by 2050,” he added.
The award was presented at the closing ceremony of this year’s field trip to Germany of the “Bayer Young
Environmental Envoy Programme”, a major project under the UNEP-Bayer partnership for youth and the
environment.
Since its inception, some 11,200 young people have applied for a place on the programme and over 500
envoys have been selected to take part in the study tour in Germany.
The programme now covers the following countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa
Rica, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, South
Korea, Thailand, Venezuela and Vietnam.
Through an alumni network on Facebook and via UNEP's TUNZA youth network, envoys past and
present can stay connected and exchange ideas on how to develop their individual projects.
Notes to Editors
For further information on the Bayer Young Environmental Envoy Programme, please visit:
www.byee.bayer.com
For more information on UNEP’s TUNZA programme, please visit: www.unep.org/tunza
The Young Environmental Envoy Facebook page is available at:
www.facebook.com/BayerYoungEnvironmentalEnvoy
Media Contacts
Bryan Coll, UNEP Newsdesk, on Tel. +254 731 666 214, E-mail: bryan.coll@bayer.com /
unepnewsdesk@unep.org
Florian Schwalbach, Bayer, on Tel. +49 214 30-45635, E-mail: florian.schwalbach@bayer.com