The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has named Monique Ntumngia its 2019 International President’s Youth Award winner. The international award is for her outstanding achievements as a person under 30 who has made a significant achievement to nature conservation. In 2017, the multi-lingual Ntumngia was crowned the winner of the inaugural WWF Africa Youth Award.

The Cameroonian made her mark in Africa and now the world as founder of Green Girls. The program teaches young women from rural communities on the use of renewable energy including how to generate solar energy and biogas from human waste and energy from the sun.

She founded the program in 2015. The program has since trained more than 800 women, and the program provides more than 3,000 homes with biogas and more than 100 households with solar installations. 

“It’s been my good fortune that Green Girls has allowed me to combine two of my great passions:  sustainable development and female empowerment,” she said upon receiving the international honor. With renewable energy being a part of meeting the world’s energy and environment needs, Ntumngia sees her program with ensuring that “youth will at the forefront of these challenges and women will have a central role to play.”

Africa is the most youthful continent with about 65% of the total population below the age of 35 years. By 2020, it is projected that out of 4 people, 3 will be on average 20-years-old. The WWF seeks to empower youth all over Africa through the Pan-African youth transformational program.