About Us
On a journey to bring the resources to those driving change.
Youth-led climate justice movements are essential to achieving climate and environmental justice. Their intersectional voices hold a unique and critical moral authority that drives ambitious, fair, and sustainable transitions worldwide. These movements have already made history, leading the socio-environmental movement since 2018 and holding policy-makers accountable for their promises. They are the heartbeat of an ecosystem of social movements that remind us of the urgency and gravity of the climate crisis, which is ultimately a polycrisis.
Yet, according to the Youth Climate Justice Study (2022), youth-led climate justice initiatives represent only 0.76% of climate grants from the largest climate foundations (on average between 2019-21). They lack support, connections, capacity development, flexible funding and trusted relationship with funders and donors. This is even more difficult for locally-led, Indigenous Peoples', women and queer-led organizers who face structural inequalities.
The Youth Climate Justice Fund aims to support climate justice young leaders with trust-based funding, resources, and youth-to-youth capacity development, enabling them to amplify their voices and to keep their vision and influence alive.
Collectively, we have the power to ignite meaningful change and build equitable and sustainable futures. Despite the challenges posed by the current crisis, youth climate justice organizers remain determined to challenge the status quo and push boundaries.
MISSION & PURPOSE
We work to strengthen existing organizing efforts and support emerging youth movements with a focus on bridging funders and organizers to enable flexible and impactful support. Through youth-to-youth capacity development and resource sharing, we empower and support young people to drive change and build a just and sustainable future.
For Youth Climate Justice Organizers
We provide youth climate justice movements with funding opportunities and youth-to-youth capacity development, especially for historically marginalised and impoverished groups.
For Funders & Supporters
We bridge funders and organizers by providing funders with more knowledge and opportunities to resource youth climate justice movements.
The Youth Climate Justice Fund is a youth-led, youth-owned and movements-driven fund that:
Creates a garden full of resources
Providing swift support and resources to youth-led climate justice organizations, facilitating them to address critical needs and seize key opportunities. By creating a pool fund, we can help bridge the resource gap and ensure that movements have the necessary resources to make a deeper impact in the fight for climate justice.
Champions youth-led participative grantmaking
Initiating innovative youth-led participatory grantmaking to build strong youth leadership and consolidate the trust and credibility between movements and funding sources. Through our participatory process, youth representatives and movements are leading funding and strategic decisions.
Equips the next generation of leaders with youth-to-youth capacity development
Strengthening existing youth climate movements and identifying new emerging ones. We provide youth-to-youth capacity development tools and resources for movements because we believe in the power of peer-to-peer learning.
Cultivates donors and supporters awareness
Informing and raising funders’ awareness of the power and needs of youth climate justice movements. We organise funders' convenings for donors and supporters to learn about the power of youth climate justice movements. We develop resources for funders to increase and better their own funding to youth movements.
Maps where we can win!
Developing youth-to-youth research and landscape mapping of the youth climate justice movements. We are a key partner to the broader philanthropic ecosystem to produce high-level mapping and expertise on the needs and impacts of youth climate justice movements.
We believe that it is crucial to have empowered and well-resources youth climate justice movements to:
Nourish the next generations of diverse organisers rooted in community and climate justice principles.
Raise ambitions and commitments on climate & socio-environmental justice.
Hold policymakers accountable to their promises and strengthen community power.
We base our work on strong principles
They are a set of compass and rules that help us guide our work.
Building access and conditions for meaningful participation in our processes
We're committed to evolve and change to ensure that youth-led climate justice movements are able to participate and access.
Intersectionality as the foundation of our participatory grantmaking processes
We prioritise those who are most impacted by multiple forms of oppression and aim to address these interconnected issues holistically.
Practising solidarity and accountability
We strive to hold each others accountable for upholding values and principles of equity and justice in all aspects of our participative grantmaking work.
Trust as an outcome
We build a youth-to-youth platform for youth-led climate justice movements to build trust with the funding and resources provided. We believe that groups know best what they need to make their initiatives and ideas happen.
Humility for our work
We recognize and acknowledge our own limitations, and work collaboratively with youth organizers and other partners to change and evolve.
We also believe in key values
These values are beliefs that hold us to a common goal.
Youth-driven
We believe in the power of young people to create structural change and are committed to supporting youth-led initiatives that prioritize the voices and needs of young people in the fight for climate justice.
Inclusivity
We believe in creating a space where everyone, regardless of their race, gender, socioeconomic status, or any other factor, feel welcome and truly valued.
Accountability
We take responsibility for our actions and decisions and are committed to being transparent about our funding process and how we use our resources to support youth-led climate justice initiatives.
Flexibility
We are conscious that the fight for climate justice is complex and ever-evolving, and we are committed to being responsive and adaptable to the changing needs of youth-led organizations.
Accessibility
We believe that everyone should have equal access to resources and opportunities, and we strive to make our funding processes and resources as accessible as possible.

Our dedication to fostering an equitable world drives us to prioritize funding and resources for those who have historically been marginalized and disadvantaged, especially young people who are black, people of colour, women, queer, Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
Who we are
Team
The staff of the Youth Climate Justice Fund support daily operations from administration and the practicalities of grantmaking to planning resource mobilisation efforts and amplifying the work of youth climate justice organisers.

Ana Laura Goszko
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Country
- Argentina
- Role
- Operations Manager
Bio
International Relations and Political Science graduate, recently based in Dublin, Ireland. She has built a professional career in administration and operations support within semi-public, private, and non-profit organisations. Over the years, she has developed a keen interest in social innovation projects, especially those that further concrete and more inclusive actions around sustainable development and climate change. This led her to pursue additional certifications in project management. She is eager to keep supporting initiatives that contribute to a more critical debate around climate change, considering and empowering those less heard.

Joshua Amponsem
- Pronouns
- he/him
- Country
- Ghana
- Role
- Strategy Director
Bio
Ghanaian climate activist and the former Climate Lead at the Office of the UN Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth. He has over 8 years of experience working with young people on Climate Action Disaster Risk, and Resilience Building. He founded Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO), served as a member of the IRENA Global Council on Enabling Youth Action for SDG 7, and has been an Adaptation Fellow at the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA). In the past two years, Joshua has focused on supporting grassroot youth-led organizations and is continuously engaged in the advocacy to shift climate philanthropy to youth and locally-led organizations.

Laura Veronica Muñoz
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Country
- Colombia
- Role
- Communications Manager
Bio
Ecofeminist climate organiser and multimedia communicator from Bogotá. She comes from an Andean native peasant family from Cómbita, Boyacá and believes that positionality, sharing and profound questioning must be at the core to achieve socio-environmental justice. Laura has organised youth climate projects with Pacto X El Clima, Fridays For Future Bogotá, Unite For Climate Action, FFF MAPA, Mock COP and most recently with the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. And has supported as well native peasant and agroecology processes. She has an Education, Gender and International Development MA from University College London - Institute Of Education in which she addresses how hegemonic Western education has historically impacted the identity and climate agency of native peasant communities and women from the Cundiboyacense Highlands of Colombia.

Nathan Méténier
- Pronouns
- he/they
- Country
- France / Canada
- Role
- Development Director
Bio
23-year-old climate justice & LGBTQI2S+ activist. Nathan was one of seven members of Antonio Guterres’ Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change from 2020-2023. He founded Generation Climate Europe - the largest coalition of youth-led networks on climate and environmental issues at the European level. Nathan was also the co-chair of the youth pre-COP26 and is a former Board member of the European Environmental Bureau and Youth and Environment Europe. He is also a 776 Foundation fellow awardee. In 2020, he was nominated with 5 other young European for the “Young European of the Year 2020” award. He graduated from Sciences Po Grenoble in France and has a MA in environmental policy and regulation at the London School of Economics.
Regional Leads
Regional Leads support groups from the moment they apply for funding, to their more strategic needs beyond the funding cycle.

Ayshka Najib
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Country
- India / United Arab Emirates
- Role
- Middle East Regional Lead
Bio
Ayshka Najib (she/her) is a climate justice activist and organizer based in the UAE. Her work focuses on ensuring the leadership and meaningful participation of those at the frontlines of the crisis and this is reflected in her advocacy with Fridays For Future MAPA (Most Affected People and Areas). She is one of the UNICEF Youth Advocates to UAE, supporting the Gulf Area Office with her expertise on climate change.

Cherelle Fruean
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Country
- Samoa / New Zealand
- Role
- Asia Pacific Regional Lead
Bio
Passionate advocate for climate justice and social change. Hailing from Samoa with ancestral ties to Tokelau and Tuvalu, Cherelle has always been passionate about uplifting stories from the Pacific. As a Pacific Climate Warrior, Cherelle acknowledges the importance of amplifying the voices of youth and marginalized communities, weaving indigenous, racial, and gender justice into the climate narrative. As an Asia Pacific advisory board member for FRIDA, she showcases her dedication to financing diverse youth-led initiatives that drive social change. With an education background in commerce and development studies and work experience within the UN, mental health, and education; Cherelle brings a unique perspective to her activism.

Joice Mendez
- Pronouns
- She/her
- Country
- Colombia / Paraguay
- Role
- Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Lead
Bio
Joice Mendez is a migrant and social entrepreneur working on transboundary cooperation in the water-energy-food nexus with an emphasis on energy justice. Joice is a major voice of Latin America within leading youth and climate mechanisms, including the United Nations Secretary General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change, the UNMGCY’s SDG7 Youth Constituency, the IRENA's Director- General's Global Council on Enabling Youth Action for SDG7 and the initiative Youth4Climate.
Joice co-founded several local and regional youth organizations, including the Moema Viezzer Environmental Education Observatory, the Latin American Observatory of Geopolitics of Energy, and the binational Youth Collective of the Parana Basin 3 from the Cultivating Good Water Initiative– a recipient of the UN-Water Best Practice Award in 2015. Joice has also supported Paraguay's National Conference of Youth since 2016 and the National Forum of Water and Youth, and continues to be active in YOUNGO, the Climate Reality Project América Latina, SDG7 Youth Constituency, and the Youth Adaptation Network of the Global Center on Adaptation.

Passy Amayo Ogolla
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Country
- Kenya
- Role
- Africa Regional Lead
Bio
Environmental sustainability advocate with exceptional leadership and professional skills having served as a programme manager, youth climate and sustainable energy champion, network weaver, researcher, facilitator and policy entrepreneur over the past 8 years. She has a proven career history in international development, futures thinking, and strategic foresight work. Passy is adept in conceptualising and effectively implementing projects, mobilising support for increased sustainable practices across sectors, creating connections, weaving collaborations across multiple stakeholders, and catalysing collective intelligence and actions to secure sustainable futures for current and future generations. She is currently the Vice-Chair of IRENA's Global Council on SDG7 and the Regional Focal Point for East and Southern Africa at the SDG7 Youth Constituency.

Zagy Berian
- Pronouns
- He/Him
- Country
- Indonesia
- Role
- South Asia Regional Lead
Bio
Social impact leader focused on providing youth engagement in energy and the climate sector. Besides, he is also a youth researcher working independently on research about technology, innovation, utilization, resource assessment, and education in renewable energy within 6 publications in total. Regarding his concern in education, he cares to help students to understand and do more in renewable energy through the society of renewable energy and him as a founder. Currently, the field of research that he works in are geothermal, solar PV, solar thermal, energy storage, innovations, and solutions. His organization, the Society of Renewable Energy (SRE), aims to accelerate Indonesia's energy transition through youth empowerment and multi-organizational collaboration.
Steering Committee
Steering committee members are advising and support the general processes of the Youth Climate Justice Fund. They play an essential role in supporting our collective resource mobilisation efforts.

Archana Soreng
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Country
- India
Bio
Archana belongs to Khadia Tribe from India. She is a Climate Justice Advocate. She was the Youth Advisor to United Nations Secretary General. She was part of the First Cohort of United Nations Secretary General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change, she was the only one from Asia and Indigenous among the seven members.
She holds a Masters Degree in Regulatory Governance from Tata Institute of Social Sciences Mumbai. She holds experience in research and advocacy on the rights of indigenous and local communities and Climate Action. She has been working to document, preserve and promote traditional knowledge and cultural practices of indigenous communities.
She is a member of YOUNGO, official children and youth constituency of UNFCCC . She is also a member of GYBN Global Youth Biodiversity Network , Youth Constituency of United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.
She has been reclaiming spaces for Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the climate and biodiversity spaces, voicing their perspective and advocating for recognition and enforcement of their rights and making them an integral part of the decision making processes

Ayisha Siddiqa
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Country
- Pakistan / USA
Bio
Pakistani human rights, climate defender and poet. She is a co-founder of Polluters Out and the Executive Director of Student Affairs at FFU. On Sept 20th, 2019 she helped mobilize and lead over 300,000 students onto the streets of Manhattan demanding their governments take climate action. Her advocacy focuses on climate justice and racial justice for BIPOC youth. She is one of the current Youth Advisors to the UN Secretary General. In early 2023, she was announced one of the Times Women of the Year 2023.

Dominique Palmer
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Country
- United Kingdom
Bio
She is a Climate Justice Activist, Writer and Speaker based in the U.K. She is a coordinator in Climate Live, a youth-led organisation to harness the power of music for the planet, part of the #StopRosebank campaign. She focuses on engaging people, and demanding action from world leaders. She became an environmentalist after discovering how air pollution was impacting her community in London, and impact of rising sea levels in Jamaica. She is committed to intersectional Climate Justice. She was involved in the September 2019 climate strikes which brought 300,000 people on the streets in the U.K. She has spoken on world stages about climate justice and her activism, at events such as COP26, COP27, NY Times Hub hosted by Emma Watson alongside Malala and Greta Thunberg, Forum, at the O2 with Billie Eilish. She was named in Forbes 2020 Top U.K Environmentalists List for her work, and was honoured as a young leader at the Green Carpet Fashion Awards.

Hilda Flavia Nakabuye
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Country
- Uganda
Bio
Hilda Flavia Nakabuye is a Ugandan climate, gender and environmental rights activist who founded Fridays for Future Uganda - a youth-led and organized global climate strike movement. Every Friday, she works toward building a safer and healthier environment by rallying governments, corporate organizations and communities to take climate action. She has visited schools around the world, mobilizing students to use their voices to make a difference. Flavia Nakabuye is also a public speaker, writer, Future Girl Rising fellow and member of the C40 Global Youth and Mayors Forum. She leads shore cleanup at Lake Victoria, empowering lakeshore communities to learn how to protect lakes and fight against plastic pollution.

Kantuta Conde
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Country
- Bolivia
Bio
Aymara woman from the Plurinational State of Bolivia. She advocates for Indigenous Peoples' rights, particularly for the rights of Indigenous Women and Youth. She has advocated for the indigenous young perspective, as a member of the Red de Jóvenes Indígenas de Latino America y el Caribe (RED-LAC). She is a law student in the Universidad Mayor de San Andres. She has also participated in the 2021 International Summer Program on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Policy in Columbia University. She also campaigns for access to health for youth as a member of the Young Group for Health of the Pan American Health Organization. Currently, she is LAC Focal Point of the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus and Co-chair of the ILC youth platform.

Maximo Mazzocco
- Pronouns
- he/him
- Country
- Argentina
Bio
Máximo Mazzocco is a climate & ecological advocate and entrepreneur. Declared Pangeist, he is a UNDP Youth Global Ambassador and a Member of Kay Pacha’s Order. In 2014, he founded Eco House Global, an Action for Sustainability non profit organization with more than 40 ongoing programes. Nowadays, he is a member the New Zero World Youth Council. Author of “Apuntes the un ambientalista” (Penguin Random House). He is founder and co-founder of several initiatives, organizations, programs, campaigns and networks. His love for animales led him to followa plant-based diet for more than 10 years.

Mitzi Jonelle Tan
- Pronouns
- she/they
- Country
- Philippines
Bio
Mitzi Jonelle Tan is a full-time climate justice activist based in Metro Manila, Philippines. She is the convenor and international spokesperson of Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines (YACAP), the Fridays For Future (FFF) of the Philippines. She is also an organizer with FFF International and FFF MAPA (Most Affected Peoples and Areas) making sure that voices from the Global South especially are heard, amplified, and given space. A strong voice on anti-imperialism, anti-colonization, and the intersectionality of the climate crisis, she is committed to changing the system and building a world that prioritizes people and planet, not profit, through collective action. She is also a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative champion.

Paloma Costa
- Pronouns
- she/her
- Country
- Brazil
Bio
Socioenvironmental defender and climate artivist from Brazil. Graduated in Law and Social Sciences, she was a Youth Advisor to the UN Secretary-General from 2020 to 2023. She still serves as Advisor in different UN Agencies and other Institutions. For the past 8 years, she acted as legal advisor to the Instituto Socioambiental, in socioenvironmental rights, including climate, indigenous and traditional peoples, being responsible for pushing the youth perspective into the organization. She co-coordinated the Working Group on Climate at the youth-led organization Engajamundo, as well as several Youth Delegations to National and International Climate Conferences. In recent years, she has focused on supporting grassroots organizations to broaden the reach of their initiatives and is continually engaged in socioenvironmental advocacy, implementing #ClimateAction and democratize more finance for on ground organizations.