The Earth Prize 2025: 17-year-old Nigerian named as Africa’s Winner in $100K global competition for project transforming neglected city areas into eco parks

• The Earth Prize is the world’s largest environmental competition and ‘ideas incubator’ for 13-19-year-olds, empowering young people with mentorship and $100K funding
• Seven Regional Winners have recently been announced, representing the regions of North America, Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Oceania and Southeast Asia, Europe and the Middle East

• Africa Winner Amara Nwuneli is building sustainable parks made from recycled materials, transforming neglected urban areas into green community hubs
• Each team receives $12.5K to develop and implement their idea
• The public vote is now open crown the Global Winner on Earth Day (April 22)

In an effort to bring green spaces to dense urban areas, a 17-year-old has been named as the African Winner of The Earth Prize 2025. Amara C. Nwuneli’s solution is ‘Preserve Our Roots’, a project turning underserved urban sites into green community hubs.

Amara, a Nigerian-American activist, was motivated by the conditions of her local environment. In Lagos, Nigeria, a city of around 17 million people, green spaces cover only 3% of the total land area, leading to rising urban heat, poor air quality, biodiversity loss and declining mental and physical well-being. In response, Amara created Preserve Our Roots, a youth-led NGO turning forgotten urban spaces into green sustainability parks. The first pilot park was built with recycled materials in Ikota, Nigeria, thanks to the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donors, and also empowers urban youth through climate education and storytelling.

Amara impressed The Earth Prize’s expert jury with her final pitch, having excelled in the programme’s incubation and mentorship phases, and will now receive $12.5K to scale up her idea further.

The Earth Prize aims to empower the next generation with all the tools they need to develop their eco solutions for real life impact, including one-to-one mentoring, learning resources and funding of $100K for the winning teams to scale up. Since 2021, The Earth Prize has reached over 15,000 young people across 160 countries and territories, and awarded $500K to the top teams.

Previous applicants have garnered global media attention in outlets such as Forbes, Business Insider, EuroNews, Positive.News and UN Today, and continue to scale up their solutions after the competition has ended. For instance, team Delavo (Winners of The Earth Prize 2023), who invented a cutting-edge filter that recycles up to 90% of toxic laundry waste water, partnered with a national manufacturer and applied for a patent to make their solution a reality. 

The Earth Prize was started by The Earth Foundation, a Swiss non-profit organization based in Geneva, as a way to empower and educate young people to tackle environmental challenges. As young people live through and observe extreme weather events such as the LA wildfires, many are mobilised to act - choosing to create solutions for our planet rather than march in protest. 

A recent study showed that 59% of youth and young adults are very or extremely worried about climate change, and more than 45% said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning. 

The Public Vote to decide the Global Winner is now open until Tuesday April 22 (Earth Day): https://www.theearthprize.org/vote