Community Support
Three years ago, Ifeoluwa Garba, one of the fifteen innovators in the greenlabs Incubation Programme (Cohort 2), was a university student frustrated by how much single-use plastic moved through Nigerian markets every single day.
Today, he's the founder of EcoBag Mart and the voice of Consumer Advocacy and Empowerment Foundation (CADEF) at the just-concluded Green Action Week Knowledge Exchange, representing Africa's youth-led climate movement on an international stage. The Exchange was organized by the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, whose Green Action Fund supports CADEF’s Green Action Week campaign.
Ifeoluwa didn't wait for funding or permission. He built the alternative himself and then taught a room full of changemakers how to do the same.
The session, themed "Young Changemakers in Action," looked past personal habits to ask the harder question: how are young people actually organising, building, and rooting solutions in their own communities, with or without the institutions that are supposed to lead?
Ifeoluwa's presentation, "African Changemakers Who Refused to Wait," answered that question with his own life. As a member of the greenlabs Incubation Programme Cohort 2, he turned EcoBag Mart from a frustration into a functioning enterprise — eco-friendly paper bags made from agricultural waste like dry grass, corn stalks, and sugar bagasse, sourced directly from local farmers. It's a solution built to solve three problems at once: cutting reliance on imported plastic and paper, diverting the dry grass that's burned across Nigeria every year into something usable, and putting income directly into the hands of the rural suppliers who collect that waste.
He spoke candidly about the obstacles every young African changemaker recognizes: limited access to capital, institutions hesitant to take youth-led ideas seriously, and policies that move at a fraction of the speed the problem demands. But his message wasn't about the obstacles; it was about tailored solutions built for specific markets, communities, and problems.
He broke this down into a simple five-step framework for anyone unsure where to start. First, know your why - get clear on the mission driving you, because that's what sustains the work when things get hard. Second, look at who can inspire you: mentors, peers, and achievers who've already walked the path you're on. Third, study what they're doing. Ask the right questions instead of guessing. Fourth, turn that outward observation inward and ask what you can actually do, given where you are right now. And fifth, find people to build and collaborate with, because no changemaker, however determined, does this work alone.
This is precisely the gap greenlabs exists to close. The Programme doesn't just expose young people to energy, climate, agricultural, and sustainability issues; it gives them the mentorship, technical support, and platform to turn an idea like EcoBag Mart into a working enterprise and then puts them in rooms like this one, representing Nigeria's youth climate movement to a continental and global audience.
Watch the full session, "African Changemakers Who Refused to Wait": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x88AFuwAwh0
Do you know a young person building solutions in their own community, with or without permission? greenlabs is how we find and back them up.
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