Climate Champion
Adenike Oladosu
Adenike Oladosu is a leading Nigerian ecofeminist and climate justice leader, and researcher. In December 2024, Adenike was honored by #BBC100Women, selected as one of the BBC’s 100 most influential and inspiring women from around the world. She was also a finalist for the Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award in 2024. Adenike earned a first-class degree in Agricultural Economics. She is one of Africa’s most vocal environmental activists. In 2019, she became a recipient of the Ambassador of Conscience by Amnesty International – Nigeria for her fight for climate justice and human rights. She is a writer both for her blog post and for the international newspaper. Adenike is a two-term Nigerian youth delegate to the United Nations Climate Change Conference since COP25 in Spain and subsequent COPs. She started her pan-African climate justice movement called “I Lead Climate Action Initiative”. Through her initiative, she has empowered more than 30,000 Indigenous women and girls in different communities and mobilized millions of people for climate action as the initiator of the Fridays For Future in Nigeria, and the first African to join the movement in 2018. Adenike has developed a curriculum on climate change and ecofeminism in Africa. She is also pioneering the interconnection between climate change and democracy.
Oladosu holds a residency fellowship at the Panel on Planetary Thinking at Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany on using Earth Observation to restore shrinking Planetary Spaces: A Case Study of Lake Chad. A past fellow at The New Institute (TNI) in Hamburg, Germany on black feminism and polycrisis. And awarded the International Climate Protection Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation on the protection of Lake Chad as a peace and conflict resolution pathway; achieving protection through mapping and data generation.
"The interconnected challenges of conflict,
forced displacement, environmental degradation
and climate change are putting an entire generation
at risk. To address the growing education/climate crisis,
we must act #RightHereRightNow to ensure
access to quality education for millions of
crisis-impacted girls and boys worldwide."
Featured Content
GLobal champion
Nicolai Wammen
Mr. Nicolai Wammen is the Danish Minister for Finance since 2019 and former Minister of European Affairs (2011-2013) and Minister of Defence (2013-2015). From 2006 to 2011, he was the mayor of Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city, as well as chairman and board member of various committees. Minister Wammen also served as Member of Parliament for the Social Democratic Party from 2001 to 2005, which included roles as the fiscal policy spokesman and vice president of the Danish Social Democrats.
"I am honored to join the important work of ECW as a
Global Champion, and I look forward to supporting
the global efforts to ensure that no child or young
person is left behind. We must give all children the
opportunity to transform their lives and communities,
by giving them the quality education they deserve.”
Featured Content
GLobal champion
Christina Lamb
Christina Lamb is Chief Foreign Correspondent at The Sunday Times and one of Britain’s leading foreign journalists as well as a bestselling author. She has been awarded Foreign Correspondent of the Year six times as well as Europe’s top war reporting prize, the Prix Bayeux, and was recently given the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Society of Editors and the Outstanding Impact Award by Amnesty International.
She is the best-selling author of ten books including Farewell Kabul, The Africa House, and The Sewing Circles of Herat and co-wrote the international bestseller I am Malala with Malala Yousafzai and The Girl from Aleppo with Nujeen Mustafa. Her book Our Bodies, Their Battlefields about sexual violence in conflict won the first Pilecki Institute award for war reporting and was shortlisted for Britain's top non-fiction award, the Baillie Gifford Prize, as well as the Orwell Prize, the Kapuscinski Prize and the New York Public Library Bernstein award.
She is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an Honorary Fellow of University College Oxford, an International Board member of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, an Associate of the Imperial War Museum, and was made an OBE by the Queen in 2013. Her most recent book The Prince Rupert Hotel for the Homeless is her first on her own country.
Christina was a key-note moderator and participant during Education Cannot Wait’s “Spotlight on Afghanistan” session at this year’s High-Level Financing Conference in Geneva.
GLobal champion
Folly Bah Thibault
An acclaimed international journalist, Folly Bah Thibault is currently the lead presenter for Al Jazeera. Through her work for Al Jazeera, France24, Radio France International and Voice of America, Thibault has become one of the most recognized and respected journalists in the world. Her coverage of some of the world’s most pressing events as a journalist for Al Jazeera is shedding light on forgotten crises across the globe. The New African Magazine has named Thibault as one of the ‘Most Influential Africans’ working today.
With more than 20 years of experience as a journalist, Thibault has covered some of the world’s most important news stories, including the Arab Spring and marquee specials for Al Jazeera on the United Nations. She has interviewed heads of state, Nobel Prize winners, artists and influencers the world over.
As well as being a world-renowned journalist, Thibault is a leading advocate for education. In 2019, she launched her foundation – Elle Ira à l’Ecole – which helps young girls in Guinea get an education.
Thibault was the Master of Ceremonies at the ECW High-Level Financing Conference in February 2023, where world leaders came together to announce a ground-breaking US$826 million in support of the Fund.
“ECW represents the UN at its best and I’m honored
to be a part of this movement. Education is a game
changer. It lifts up lives, transforms economies and
societies, and provides renewed hope or an entire
generation of children whose futures have
been disrupted by crises.”
Featured Content
GLobal champion
Somaya Faruqi
Somaya Faruqi is the former Captain of the Afghan Girls’ Robotic Team – nicknamed the ‘Afghan Dreamers’. Faruqi made international headlines when she and her team built a ventilator from used car parts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Afghanistan.
Faruqi was born in Herat, Afghanistan in 2002. She cultivated her love of engineering in her father’s mechanic shop. Her high\ school career and leadership of the ‘Afghan Dreamers’ was cut short by the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. She and the rest of her teammates had to flee the country in August 2021.
Currently an engineering student, Faruqi has received several awards over her young career, including being named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia in 2021, BBC’s 100 Women in 2020, and the 2017 Silver Medal for Courageous Achievement at the FIRST Global Challenge – in recognition of science and technology in the US.
Somaya Faruqi is a fierce advocate for girls’ education – particularly for those being denied this fundamental right in Afghanistan today – and girls in STEM.
