About us

We train and mentor young people to participate in climate and environment management for sustainable development.

Our history

STEPUP was opened in 2016 to stir young people to contribute effectively to monitoring, analysis and appropriate response to climate change and ecosystem management. The data poor status of Uganda in terms of environment information can be addressed by engaging youth in collecting and organizing data in accessible formats. Organizing environment information in ways that directly align with sustainable development goals of climate action and ecosystem management will contribute greatly to better planning and use of resources. By engaging the youth in contributing to enhancing data coherence and reliability, STEPUP seeks to promote the country’s green accounting efforts, which will potentially increase trust in the country to deliver on its conservation and sustainable development commitments.

Who we are

STEPUP Standard Limited exists to stimulate and build the capacity of Ugandans to participate in ecosystem management, climate action and sustainable development. We do this mainly by equipping young people with knowledge and skills in professional factfinding and communication of climate change and ecosystem management information using a well packaged model that entails training, internship placements and mentorship. Owing to the vast population of young people with a desire to have a say in key global and national developmental issues and zeal to learn.

Our core values

Our vision

Development based on sustainable environment management where young people participate meaningfully.

Our mission

To propel young people to actively participate in making climate change, ecosystem management and sustainable development locally relevant.

Contribute to mitigating climate change and ecosystem management actions and monitoring.

The team

Sara Namirembe

Founder & Team leader

She is passionate about skilling young people in ecosystem management. She coordinates STEPUP consultancies. Previously, she worked with the World Agroforestry Centre, coordinating the Pro-poor Rewards for Environmental Services in Africa project. Her work mainly involved action research on the potential of Payments for Environmental Services in achieving sustainable land use in Africa. She has wide experience in promoting landscape-based approaches mostly focused on forestry, agroforestry and watersheds. She has served on the Board of Directors for National Environmental Authority (NEMA), Uganda. Earlier in her career, she worked as a lecturer and leader in Agroforestry and Community Forestry at Makerere University. During that time, she participated in a number of capacity building actions as a member of the African Network for Agroforestry Education (ANAFE). She holds a PhD in Forestry and Agricultural Sciences from University of Wales, UK.

Linda Mwesigwa

Partnerships and Communications Coordinator

She also facilitates the capacity-building programs in project management, communications, and environment monitoring. She has interacted with development partners, academia, and Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) in advocacy campaigns, dialogues (high level and community), research and policy design processes in the reproductive health and environment sectors. She holds a Bachelor of Microfinance and a Master of Arts in Conflict Resolution and Coexistence. She was a co-host of Dopamine Podcast and is currently a Chief Editor at Words that Count.

Roy Rita Nabasumba

Research Assistant

Roy Rita Nabasumba joined STEPUP as an Environment Monitoring fellow and is currently a Research Assistant. She does online search for literature and extracts relevant information into databases, facilitates stakeholder workshops, and supervises research interns. She is currently contributing to the Technology Need Assessment (TNA) project and was previously part of the assessment of Food Security and Environmental Management Tradeoffs in East Africa. She holds a Bachelor of Microfinance and is a Climate Governance, Diplomacy and Negotiation Leadership Program fellow. She was in the banking space for three years before she transitioned to climate action.

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What we want to achieve

Ecosystem Management Action

Building youth capacity and mentoring young people to participate in climate change action and ecosystem management in Africa

Climate change policy decisions

Working with expertise and its leadership in climate and ecosystem research and policy analysis

Monitoring environmental impacts

Effectively monitoring climate change, environmental impacts to help to come up with good data well aligned with national and global development

Bamboo absorbs carbon dioxide and releases over 30% more oxygen into the atmosphere compared to an equivalent mass of trees.

Pollution is one of the biggest killers, affecting more than 100 million worldwide.

The world has over 3.04 trillion trees in the world and roughly 15 billion trees are felled each year.

Plastic garbage that ends up in the ocean kills over 1,000,000 sea animals every year

Earth is expected to hit the critical threshold of 1.5°C warming due to climate change within the next 20 years -IPCC