Stephanie Lamma Ewi
Cameroon
Expertise:
Environmental Governance
Climate Change & Environment
Youth Activist
Director of Programming
Pan African Center for Climate Policy
Stephanie Lamma Ewi obtained a master’s degree in natural resource and environmental management from the University of Buea, spearheading research and development for nine years as an environmental and climate justice advocate in rural communities of Cameroon. After much research in these communities, she noticed the exclusion of women and girls in climate change projects and decision-making platforms. She was determined to see responsible decisions made regarding sustainable natural resource management in Cameroon and Africa, and she proposed structures that facilitate the channeling of rural voices in the process, particularly women and young people for representation in national and international platforms.
Lamma Ewi leads teams of volunteers to develop entrepreneurial support and climate leadership capacity-building programs for women and young people in rural forests and communities of Cameroon. She has been able to reach over 5,460 women and 500 young people in 162 communities in the country. She empowers women with livelihood skills like bush mango processing, beekeeping, mushroom farming, snail cultivation and micro enterprise development. Her work with rural community councils has prompted the formulation of over 20 local forest management policies in villages within Nguti and Takamanda that have stirred the construction of several nurseries with 110,000 indigenous tree species for revamping degraded sites and farmlands. Her works have recorded a 65% increase in women’s income sources and a 20% involvement of women in local councils in the communities where she works.
Lamma Ewi works directly with young people through her weekly radio program Eco-voice, an environmental awareness program on Eternity Gospel Radio and Eden Radio Limbe, Cameroon, reaching 4,000 listeners. Recently, she coordinated the establishment of a 5,000-tree nursery to combat natural disasters in Limbe. She organized the Miss Environment FOREP 2020 pageant, bringing together government institutions, 10 nongovernmental organizations, two TV stations, several media houses and 150+ people to plant more than 4,500 trees along the streets, farms and neighborhoods of Limbe. She is working with four disaster-prone communities to play football for trees, with an objective to plant 7,000 trees across her municipality.
Lamma Ewi heads a team that developed a climate change curriculum. She led her team to establish an eco club in primary schools around Limbe where they are building children’s capacities as climate ambassadors using arts. Lamma Ewi is a volunteer country mentor for the Africa Climate Reality Project, coaching 24 mentees from Bogota, Colombia, three mentees from USG/Leap Girl Africa Cameroon and 21 students from PACC Policy. She gained recognition from the United Nations Foundation as one of the six new youth voices on climate change and from the Climate Reality Project as one of 8 Women Leading on Climate. Lamma Ewi is an environmental impact consultant at the Delegation of Environment and Nature Protection in Limbe. She is a Mandela Washington fellow, YALI Regional Leadership Center alumna, a UN peace ambassador, a Joke Waller-Hunter Initiative awardee and board member of the Youth Against Slavery Movement.
Lamma Ewi says she believes that “natural resources should be for the benefits of all people and not monopolized for the benefits of few."