From Village to Virtual: Empowering Rural Girls for Climate Resilience
by Trevor Mutungi
I grew up in Kagadi district in the heart of Uganda, where nature was our classroom and survival was tied to the land. I remember watching my grandmother wake up very early to cultivate food from soils that were already too dry and to fetch water from wells that seemed to dry up earlier and earlier every year. Climate change was never an idea far away; it was happening right there in front of us every day.
Later, when I moved to Namutumba through a community education program, I met another grandmother who was raising 3 children alone. She told me she couldn’t manage both food and school fees, so she had to choose food. That moment stayed with me, and honestly, it broke my heart. I realized then that poverty, climate change and lack of education were trapping families in circles of suffering that kept repeating themselves.
That is why, together with my friends, we started Connect Care Uganda. It wasn’t because we had everything figured out, but because we couldn’t sit back and watch children and young people in rural villages lose hope. Our dream was to create chances for them to thrive despite all the challenges around them.
In Namutumba, where I now live, the impacts of climate change are very clear. Rains come too late or too early, harvests fail, families are stressed, and girls are the ones paying the highest price. Many are pushed into relationships just to survive. Education becomes a luxury, and without it, adapting to climate change becomes almost impossible.
We decided to act. Through our Sugar Daddy Awareness campaign, we talk with teenage girls openly about the risks of cross-generational relationships, linking these to their health, their rights and the future of the environment. We also train them to make reusable sanitary pads so they can stay in school instead of missing classes every month. Small things, yes, but they make a big difference.
More recently, we started the Digital Girls Project. We called it “From Village to Virtual” because we wanted to show that even the most remote girl deserves to learn digital skills. We use solar energy to power this because most homes here don’t have electricity, and we believe renewable energy is the way forward. By teaching computer basics and internet safety, we are bridging the digital divide while also giving girls a tool to speak and connect with the world.
We are also preparing to restore degraded land, planting trees and bringing back wetlands while teaching climate-smart agriculture. These are community-driven efforts, rooted in the belief that solutions must come from within, not outside.
When I think about all of this, I know climate change is not just about the weather or the forests; it is about justice. The children, the girls, and the small farmers most affected are the least represented when big decisions are being made. But when we give them tools, whether it is a reusable pad or a solar-powered digital hub, we show that solutions are already here, in the margins.
As the world looks to COP30, our story from Namutumba carries one message: if decision-making and financing don’t center the voices of frontline communities, then solutions will never be complete. But if we shift power to young people and rural communities, resilience is not only possible, it is unstoppable.
This is not just my story, it is the story of every rural girl daring to dream, every grandmother who won’t give up and every young person believing that fighting for climate and nature is the same as fighting for dignity, for equity and for hope.
About
Trevor Mutungi is the founder of Connect Care Uganda, a grassroots organisation advancing education, girl-child empowerment, and climate resilience in rural Eastern Uganda. He grew up in Kagadi District, witnessing how climate change and poverty threatened livelihoods. His work in Namutumba revealed how deeply climate risks affect girls’ education and community survival. Trevor and his team design community-driven solutions such as the Sugar Daddy Awareness campaign, training girls to make reusable pads, and the Digital Girls Project, which brings solar-powered digital literacy to off-grid villages. He believes that frontline voices, especially those of rural girls, hold powerful solutions to climate and social injustice. Trevor is also a Building Tomorrow Fellow (2022–2024), with a background in education and community mobilisation, committed to shifting youth and grassroots communities from the margins to the mainstream of environmental action.