A group of young eco-engineers are cleaning up rivers by transforming old cooking oil into soap.
Javier Guillén, 26, was shocked to see how polluted the river by his home in North-West Nicaragua had become.
People often throw their used cooking oil into toilets and sinks, with much of this ending up in Nicaragua’s waterways.
Together with fellow engineers, Mayte Molina, 25, and Elena Salgado, 24, Guillén started a social enterprise called Hydrosolutions to tackle this problem.
“We focused on the contamination of the Coco River since Javier is originally from that area,” the group says. “He told us how water pollution led to economic problems.”
Coco River, also known as Río Coco, travels through Northern Nicaragua and Southern Honduras.
40% of Nicaragua’s workforce are employed in agriculture, but the contaminated water from the river can kill crops and leave farmers without any income.
Hydrosolutions encourage community members and businesses to save their leftover cooking oil rather than ditching it.
The young engineers then convert this into soap and candles, by combining the oil with water, fragrance and other chemicals.
Earlier this year, Hydrosolutions was one of the winning solutions at the UN’s Generation Unlimited Youth Challenge.
180 teams from 36 countries submitted solutions to pressing problems in their communities.
The most promising ideas, including Hydrosolutions, were awarded funding and mentoring to help make them reality.
The group is now working with other communities to scale up their work.
They have taught 25 young people across Nicaragua and Honduras how to produce and sell the soaps, helping to tackle both pollution and youth unemployment.
Nicaragua’s Climate Change Activists
Young climate activists are fighting for a greener future in Central America.
In the face of dust storms, droughts and deforestation, meet the people raising their voices and taking action to fight the climate emergency...
Jezabel Aponte
Jezabel, 22, witnessed first-hand the impact that natural disasters were having on farmers in her community in Northern Nicaragua.
The country was unprepared for Hurricane Eta, which hit Central America in November 2020.
Many people in Jezabel’s hometown lost family members, their homes and their crops, leaving them with nothing.
Now Jezabel, who is a civil engineer, trains farmers to protect trees and support reforesting programmes, which can help minimise the impact of natural disasters.
She also volunteers with Raleigh Nicaragua, leading their entrepreneurship programme.
She has delivered training to 50 entrepreneurs and in 2021 was also elected as a Climate Youth Delegate at Pre-COP, a preparatory meeting ahead of the conference, where she was able to amplify the concerns of young Nicaraguans.
Federico Calderon
When Tropical Storm Ida hit El Salvador in 2009, almost 200 people died and 15,000 people lost their homes.
After witnessing this destruction, Federico, 29, began to work as a volunteer for Raleigh International, a youth organisation fighting climate change.
“Health systems collapsed and people migrated to other countries as their homes were destroyed,” Federico says.
Today, he works as an Operations Manager, training over 4,000 young people in sustainable development and climate change adaptation.
Federico was also selected as a delegate at the pre-COP26 talks in Italy earlier this year.
Hanzell Benavides
Hanzell is one of the 200,000 victims of the dust storms that plague León in Western Nicaragua as a result of mass peanut harvesting.
The trees that used to serve as windbreaks to help contain the dust coming from farms have been destroyed.
Now, many inhabitants of Leon suffer from respiratory diseases as a result of these dust storms.
After seeing the impact that deforestation was having on his home, Hanzell began volunteering for Raleigh International.
He supports the organisation’s Dame Chance campaign strategy, which has trained over 2,000 people in reforestation and supported the creation of over 400 eco-friendly businesses.
Josseling Zeledón
Earlier this year, Josseling, 28, was Nicaragua’s country coordinator for COY16, the UN’s Climate Change Conference of Youth.
She has helped to empower other young people around the world to become climate activists.
Josseling has led local events such as LCOY, a conference for youth activists, which brought together over 700 young people to discuss and learn about the climate emergency.
She says: “As both individuals and a society, we need to build a more sustainable way of living to ensure the safety of our generation and future generations. I envision a society that can grow together with nature.
“We can have economic improvement without damaging the environment, but this can only happen if world leaders start taking climate change as the serious problem that it actually is. We need to all work alongside each other to create a better world.”
