At 14, this Kenyan girl started planting mangroves; years later, her youth movement has planted more than 270,000 trees

At just 14, Kenyan climate activist Shanariha Evans has already turned a childhood passion for conservation into a youth movement with an extraordinary environmental footprint. Through the Young Warriors Club, Evans has helped educate thousands of students while leading communities in restoring coastal ecosystems. The organisation says it has planted more than 270,000 mangroves, alongside removing hundreds of tonnes of plastic waste. In 2026, her work earned Evans the Youth award at the P.E.A. Awards, recognising a young conservation leader building change through education and action.Shanariha Evans started Young Warriors Club as a young environmental activistShanariha Evans founded and inspired the Young Warriors Club in Kenya as a youth-led organisation focused on environmental conservation and climate action. According to the club, its work combines climate literacy, environmental protection, marine conservation and mangrove restoration, giving young people opportunities to take part rather than simply learn about environmental problems.The organisation describes Evans as a 14-year-old climate change activist and environmentalist from Mombasa whose work has inspired other young people to become involved in conservation. Its own history traces the initiative back to 2019, when Evans was 12 and began building a movement around protecting the environment.Her youth movement has planted more than 270,000 mangrovesThe scale of the Young Warriors Club's mangrove work is now one of its defining achievements. The organisation says it has planted more than 270,000 mangroves, with its history recording the milestone as being reached in 2024. Its first major mangrove campaign began in 2020 under the name “Plant a Million Mangroves”, with more than 50,000 mangroves planted around Tudor and Mtwapa creeks. The P.E.A. Awards also highlighted the figure, saying Evans had led community efforts responsible for planting more than 270,000 mangrove trees. The award recognised her ability to combine youth leadership with practical conservation.Evans has taken climate education into more than 36 Kenyan schoolsThe work is not limited to planting trees. The P.E.A. Awards said Evans and the Young Warriors Club have worked with more than 36 public schools across Kenya, directly educating and inspiring more than 2,000 students. That education-first approach is central to the organisation's model, which aims to nurture young people who understand environmental challenges and feel capable of responding to them.Alongside climate literacy, the club runs environmental protection and marine conservation activities. Its programmes also include beach clean-ups, with the organisation reporting that it has removed hundreds of tonnes of plastic waste from the environment.The Young Warriors Club is turning mangrove restoration into a youth movementMangrove restoration has become one part of a wider effort to give young people a direct role in protecting coastal ecosystems. The Young Warriors Club says its mission is to nurture environmentally conscious leaders by promoting climate literacy, sustainability and community-driven solutions. Its reported milestones include school partnerships, youth volunteers, beach clean-ups and the large-scale mangrove planting campaign.The P.E.A. Awards named Evans the winner of its Youth category in 2026, placing her alongside nominees from youth and environmental organisations around the world. The judges recognised a model in which education and hands-on conservation reinforce each other. For Evans, the achievement is striking not simply because of the number of trees planted, but because of how early the work began.What started with a young Kenyan activist has developed into a wider network involving schools, volunteers and communities. More than 270,000 mangroves later, the Young Warriors Club is showing how youth-led environmental action can move beyond awareness campaigns and leave a physical mark on the landscape.Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.