About us

Training, research and networking

Our history

STEPUP was founded in 2016 by a researcher and an educationist with the intention of responding to two major trends that were happening in uganda;

Growing population of unemployed youths
Environmental degradation partially caused by insufficient attention to research and data in guiding sus decisions

Over the years, STEPUP grew by working with a youthful team passionate on environmental sustainability and climate action.

Currently, STEPUP is being run by three people but overtime since its foundation, has been looping in students mentored on short contracts and others on mentorship attachment within STEPUP. In addition STEPUP has been working with consultants.

Since 2016 STEPUP has mentored…fellows in partnership with …host institutions

In the quest of linking these youths to apprenticeships and potential employment opportunities, STEPUP developed partnerships with various entities. We started off with a narrow focus on the environment sector but quickly realised that the need for youth mentorship is beyond the need for environment focus and that environment issues are relevant for other sectors. So we broaden our student intake and youth mentorship partner institutions. These institutions grew to include various entities in environment- forestry, water and agriculture; social science; business; climate change; data and statistical studies; construction; science and technology governance; NGOs; research; tailoring; energy

So far, we have contributed to data and research needs in various entities such as the standard gauge railway (potential impact on protected areas); NaFORRI- (various aspects of their research); Uganda Carbon Bureau (carbon sequestration of improved stoves and wetlands); tree trends (Kalanamu tree survey), NFA ( … ); IUCN – (natural regeneration ); Consultancies in climate, water, soil organic carbon in agricultural lands)

Some of the STEPUP fellows were retained on paid contracts within their organizations and some were called by former host institutions while some used the gained experience to continue for further studies in environment and other fields.

Some of the students contributions have helped organizations to fundraise, upgrade the way they communicate and also to reach out to new partners

Currently we are working on an energy themed essay competition, research, and STEPUP ‘pamoja’ together

Who we are

STEPUP Standard Limited is an organisation registered in Uganda in 2016 established by a researcher and an educationist, working with a youthful team passionate on environmental sustainability and climate action

Our core values

Our vision

Young people participate meaningfully and contribute to evidence on sustainable environmental management

Our mission

To propel young people to actively participate and contribute to evidence and Knowledge transfer for environment and sustainable development

Join us in contributing to climate action and ecosystem management 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

Training

Up-skill youths for self development , contribute to green development and technology transfer

Research

Youths contribute to research; enhance data transformation and utilisation, knowledge management and transfer, precision of Data

Networking

Youths interface with professionals and engage in environmental discourses; building relationships with schools; deployment of rainwater harvesting

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.

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