I grew up in a small, muddy village in Cameroon’s South-West region. Back then, words like Environmental sustainability were foreign to me. Yet, they lived quietly in the rhythms of our lives—how elders farmed was just enough to let the land breathe, and stories around the fire taught us how to respect rivers and forests. These practices were our unwritten scripture, passed down by parents who’d never stepped into a classroom but understood the balance of humanity and nature.
As I left home — first for school, then later traveling across towns, cities, and continents—I began to see the world through a fractured lens. In some places, nature was a resource to exploit; in others, a relic to admire behind fences. I met farmers who’d forgotten ancestral composting tricks, city dwellers who saw trees as obstacles, and activists shouting into apathetic voids. But I couldn’t articulate then how these fractured relationships could be mended, or how the wisdom of my village might ripple outward.
Curiosity troubled me. Why did some communities nurture the earth while others devoured it? How could we translate the silent language of environmental sustainability — the kind my ancestors hummed into soil — into something the modern world might hear? I realized the answer wasn’t just in data or policies, but in how we communicate and tell the story.
My education and travels became a double-edged gift. I studied environmental science, yet found classrooms too sterile to spark change. I walked rainforests with Indigenous guides who mapped ecosystems through songs and sat with engineers designing solar grids in South African slums. Slowly, it clicked – sustainability isn’t a textbook lesson. It’s a mosaic of communications and stories, each piece shaped by culture, pain, and hope.
But bridging these worlds was lonely work. In academic halls, my village’s practices were ‘quaint folklore.’ Back home, elders shrugged at terms like ‘carbon footprint.’ I wrestled with how to honor traditional knowledge without romanticizing poverty, or how to make climate science feel urgent, not paralyzing. For years, I felt like a translator without an audience—until I found my tool – communication and storytelling.
I began writing—not reports, but narratives. I blogged about Cameroonian farmers reviving seed-saving rituals, paired with infographics on biodiversity. I shared videos of grandmothers teaching kids to read the weather through insect hums, alongside interviews with climatologists. The more I wove old and new, local and global, the louder the response grew. Followers messaged: ‘I never knew my kitchen garden mattered’ or ‘Your post made me join a tree-planting group.’
Today, I collaborate with a global community of environmental sustainability communicators and storytellers—bloggers, artists, data wizards — united by the belief that saving the planet starts with retelling our relationship to it. My village’s lessons now ripple through podcasts, illustrated threads, and workshops where teens turn folklore into climate memes. It’s not perfect – but it’s inspiring and moving. When a girl in Brazil emails me, ‘Your words made me start a compost club,’ I remember my grandmother’s saying: ‘A river begins with one drop, yet carves canyons.’
Wherever you are, mentor one or two people – either through environmental storytelling, blogging, or teaching them to amplify their roots in environmental sustainability education. And every morning, while sitting at your kitchen table — whether in Dublin or Chicago — craft environmental sustainability stories that turn whispers from your muddy villages into roars the world can’t ignore.
