How a Kenyan Schoolgirl Became Famous for Loving Trees
A 14-year-old girl from Kenya, Ellyanne Wanjiku Chlystun, is gaining worldwide attention for her work to protect the environment. She has met famous people like King Charles, Grammy winner Meji Alabi, and ex-football player David Beckham to fight against climate change.
Ellyanne’s interest in saving the planet started when she was just four years old. She was inspired by Prof. Wangari Maathai, a well-known Kenyan tree planter and Nobel Prize winner. While doing a school project about people who changed the world, Ellyanne learned about Prof. Maathai, who had planted millions of trees to help her community and raise awareness about the importance of tree planting.
Ellyanne’s mother knew about Prof. Maathai’s challenges as an activist and initially tried to discourage her from following that path. She suggested that Ellyanne become a lawyer or doctor instead. However, Ellyanne was determined to emulate her hero. After planting her first seed from an orange, she discovered her love for planting trees and wanted to learn more.
With help from her family, Ellyanne started a non-profit organization called Children With Nature in 2017. She aims to educate kids about how they can make a difference in their communities. By 2020, she had planted about 250,000 trees and had built a global community of tree lovers, planting over 1.3 million trees together.
Ellyanne has planted trees in various countries, including Uganda, Poland, the UK, and the USA, but her main focus remains in Kenya. In recent years, she has shifted some of her efforts to other climate campaigns, often relying on sponsorships to cover travel costs since she is still a child.
Balancing her schoolwork and her activism, Ellyanne maintains excellent grades. She attended a climate summit in Dubai in 2023, where she spoke about the link between climate change and rising malaria cases in Kenya.
In a video for a charity called Malaria No More, directed by Meji Alabi and featuring David Beckham, she highlighted the dangerous effects of climate change, using vivid imagery to explain how it spreads diseases.
Ellyanne also appears in a documentary called SaveOurWildlife, where she discusses how climate change threatens animals like elephants, more so than poaching. Despite her growing fame in film, she plans to return to her tree-planting roots.
Her dream is to plant trees across Africa’s Green Belt to stop the Sahara Desert from spreading. She also aims to help plant one trillion trees around the world by the time she turns 18, believing it is a reachable goal.
Ellyanne has been raised to believe that anything is possible, especially for young people. She admires how her generation in Kenya fought for change, including canceling a finance bill. However, she doesn’t want a political career like Prof. Maathai; instead, she wants to finish school and study economics in college【source: BBC】.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c05gn47n69eo