Kamara Yealie
Co-founder and Executive Director Youth Initiative for Climate Action Sierra Leone (YICA-SL)
Esther Yealie Kamara is a Sierra Leonean climate and gender advocate whose work is rooted in the communities most exposed to the climate and water crisis. As co-founder and Executive Director of the Youth Initiative for Climate Action Sierra Leone (YICA-SL), she works at the intersection of climate resilience, water security, and gender equality. At the heart of her work is a mentorship programme for young women and girls in Freetown's informal settlement communities, where flooding, poor sanitation, and displacement fall hardest on women and girls. Through it, she equips them to understand these challenges, build practical solutions, and speak for themselves in spaces they are usually left out of. Esther Yealie also connects grassroots realities to national policy. She co-led the first youth-led consultations, including a young-women-focused consultation reaching vulnerable communities, that fed into Sierra Leone's national climate commitment (NDC 3.0), submitted to the UNFCCC, and she co-organised the first and third editions of the country's Local Conference of Youth (LCOY). Through this combination of grassroots mentorship and national advocacy, she works to ensure that women and girls in flood-prone communities are recognized as leaders in Sierra Leone's climate and water response, not only as those most affected by it.