{"id":13440,"date":"2026-06-20T12:27:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T12:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.iita.org\/news-item\/gyf-and-iita-partner-to-promote-relevant-cross-cultural-environmental-education-in-nigeria\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T21:38:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T21:38:58","slug":"gyf-and-iita-partner-to-promote-relevant-cross-cultural-environmental-education-in-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"news-item","link":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/news-item\/gyf-and-iita-partner-to-promote-relevant-cross-cultural-environmental-education-in-nigeria\/","title":{"rendered":"GYF and IITA partner to promote relevant cross cultural environmental education in Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><figure id=\"attachment_16849\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16849\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iita.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Representatives-of-the-Greening-Youth-FoundationThumb.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-16849\" src=\"https:\/\/iita.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Representatives-of-the-Greening-Youth-FoundationThumb-300x169-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16849\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Representatives of the Greening Youth Foundation went bird watching at the IITA lakeside during their courtesy visit to the IITA Forest Center, Ibadan on 21 March 2018. Photo: A. Ajayi<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Atlanta, GA<\/strong> &#8211; Greening Youth Foundation (GYF)  and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) will collaborate to develop  and implement culturally-relevant environmental education materials, projects  and activities for underserved youth  and young adults in various states throughout Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The partnership between the two organizations will promote next-generation, environmental stewardship in Nigeria by fostering advocacy  and awareness of needs for natural resource protection at local  and national l and sites while providing opportunities for youth employment  and internships that will lay a foundation for future appointments in the domestic  and international natural resource management sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Angelou Ezeilo, GYF\u2019s Founder  and Chief Executive Officer said, \u201c<em>GYF is very excited to embark upon this knowledge exchange journey with IITA. As IITA has such a strong presence in Nigeria  and has been working with youth  and young adults for many years, this partnership furthers the mission of GYF to reach underserved youth across the globe, to foster an appreciation of the natural world  and to promote careers in natural resource management. I am confident that this will be the start of a mutually beneficial relationship for both organizations  and the communities they serve.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An upcoming pilot project will train three IITA interns who in turn will touch over 2500 elementary school students during the first year of the program. GYF will work with IITA to customize its existing Forever Green Curriculum  and train IITA interns to present lessons at local schools in the project areas in Oyo, Osun  and Ekiti States. Environmental education materials include such topic areas as recycling, sustainable forestry  and agricultural practices, connections with the natural environment, climate change  and natural resource management careers. Once trained, interns will be certified  and authorized to deliver the curriculum materials. To finalize the learning exchange, certified teachers will travel to Atlanta for a month-long internship, where they will work with their American counterparts to co-teach the curriculum in the US. At the completion of the knowledge exchange, IITA interns will be fully equipped to deliver the West African version of the curriculum in Nigeria or other countries. The pilot of the program is planned to start in January 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Adewale Awoyemi, Manager of IITA\u2019s Forest Center, \u201c<em>The IITA Forest Center has extensive experience in raising awareness about environmental conservation among school children. In achieving this, the center has 20 School Conservation Clubs in Oyo, Osun  and Ekiti States in southwestern Nigeria  and runs one of the best bird clubs in Africa, the Ibadan Bird Club, to build capacity among future leaders. I strongly believe that this collaboration between GYF  and IITA will produce better outputs, which will be locally adaptable.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">IITA is a non-profit organization that generates agricultural innovations to meet Africa\u2019s most pressing challenges of hunger, malnutrition, poverty,  and natural resource degradation. Working with partners in 36 countries across sub-Saharan Africa, it improves livelihoods, enhances food  and nutrition security, increases employment,  and preserves natural resource integrity. Through its IITA Youth Agripreneurs initiative (IYA), underemployed university graduates are engaged through sustainable agriculture, forestry, environmental education  and youth entrepreneurship activities. IITA is headquartered in Ibadan in Oyo State, southwestern Nigeria (West Africa).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Greening Youth Foundation (GYF) is a national leader in connecting young people from socially  and economically disadvantaged backgrounds to natural resource management careers across the United States. GYF provides programming to over 5000 children, youth  and young adults annually,  and manages over 500 interns  and service crew members on projects in 48 states  and the Pacific Isl ands. Program activities include its <em>Historically Black Colleges  and Universities Internship Program<\/em>, a nationwide program that links college students attending Historically Black Colleges  and Universities to National Park Service sites that focus on the African-American experience  and culture; <em>Public School Initiative<\/em> that provides environmental  and wellness programming to elementary school students at public schools  and recreation centers throughout the Metro Atlanta; <em>Urban Youth Corps<\/em>, a conservation workforce development program  and the newest <em>Tree Care Management Program<\/em> that provides soft skills  and hard skills tree care management training to low-income, young adults. The Foundation currently maintains its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, with satellite offices in Arlington, Virginia  and Ikoyi, Nigeria (West Africa).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Find out more at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gyfoundation.org\/news-articles\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.gyfoundation.org\/news-articles\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WHAT: Greening Youth Foundation  and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture Partnership to Promote Cross Cultural Environmental Education in Nigeria<br>WHEN: January 2019<br>WHERE: Ibadan, Oyo State, southwestern Nigeria (West Africa)<br>WHO: Greening Youth Foundation (GYF)  and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Contact information:<\/strong><br>Yero Winborne, Greening Youth Foundation, <a href=\"mailto:ywinborne@gyfoundation.org\">ywinborne@gyfoundation.org<\/a>, 404 254-4827.<br>Adewale Awoyemi, Forest Center, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, PMB 5320, Oyo Road, Idi-Oshe, Ibadan, Nigeria. <a href=\"http:\/\/forestcenter.iita.org\/index.php\/contact\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/forestcenter.iita.org\/index.php\/contact\/<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Atlanta, GA &#8211; Greening Youth Foundation (GYF) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) will collaborate to develop and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13441,"template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"tags":[453],"science-area":[],"program":[],"location":[32],"news-type":[],"hub":[],"crop":[],"impact-areas":[],"item-year":[196],"class_list":["post-13440","news-item","type-news-item","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-gyfiya","location-nigeria","item-year-196"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/13440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/13440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30596,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/13440\/revisions\/30596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13440"},{"taxonomy":"science-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/science-area?post=13440"},{"taxonomy":"program","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program?post=13440"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=13440"},{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=13440"},{"taxonomy":"hub","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hub?post=13440"},{"taxonomy":"crop","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/crop?post=13440"},{"taxonomy":"impact-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/impact-areas?post=13440"},{"taxonomy":"item-year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/item-year?post=13440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}