In classrooms and religious halls across Nigeria, a quiet campaign is underway, built not on grand slogans but on a simple habit: teaching children to speak up politely when they see someone littering.

That is the philosophy behind Green Pacesetters Environmental Initiative (GPEI), founded this year by Uchechukwu Mercy Enem, with Obumnaeme Peter as the co-founder. Ms Enem, an environmental health and safety specialist who has worked on sustainability issues in Nigeria for over a decade. In its first year, the initiative has reached over 4,000 students and established clubs in 15 schools, and has taken part in more than 20 programmes across schools and church organisations.

“The rate of bad environmental habits is troubling,” Enem said. “Most young people who are supposed to be in the literate class are the ones mainly throwing waste indiscriminately. I have taught my club members always to speak up and talk to people politely when they see people trashing waste indiscriminately.”

Rather than simply lecturing students about climate change, GPEI’s sessions combine pep talks, workshops, and live demonstrations of proper environmental practice, teaching children the everyday value of planting and of saving water and energy, alongside one guiding principle they’re asked to carry with them: “I will always do the right thing even when nobody is watching.”

“We want them to freely do the right thing even when we are not there, or when their parents and teachers are not there,” Enem explained. “I have built long-lasting relationships with parents and schools, and it has been a great impact and achievement so far for Green Pacesetters Environmental Initiative.”

Enem’s environmental work did not begin with GPEI. In 2016, during her National Youth Service Corps posting in Taraba State, she received a Taraba State Government Award for creating reflective road signposts from recycled materials, structures that, by her account, still stand on Taraba’s roads today.

GPEI’s motto, “small steps, lasting changes,” captures the logic behind its focus on children: the small steps are the children themselves; the lasting change is what happens when each child who learns to act responsibly becomes someone who influences others to do the same.

The initiative’s next undertaking is a street walk campaign bringing young people directly into public spaces to raise awareness about environmental sustainability. “We have received permission from each warden of the kids, and they are in full support,” Enem said. “They constantly release their kids and even ask us when our next programme is. This is how their parents have given us faith and support for our activities.”

For an organisation still in its first year, the scale of what Green Pacesetters Environmental Initiative (GPEI) has already built- thousands of students reached, more than a dozen school clubs formed, is a signal of what sustained support could make possible. Enem and her team are now looking for partners and sponsors, in Nigeria and abroad, who share the belief that the surest way to change a nation’s environmental future is to start with the children in its classrooms today.