Why we exist, and how we got here.

DACTION Initiative is a youth-led environmental nonprofit based in Lekki, Lagos. We design and deliver hands-on programs across Nigeria, built and run by young people, for the communities and ecosystems they affect.

Our mission

Turn environmental awareness into action people can see today, and the careers that carry it forward tomorrow. We design and deliver youth-led programs across ocean conservation, renewable energy, and sustainability in careers and business, producing real, visible outcomes for the communities and ecosystems we work in.

Our vision

Young Africans leading the continent's environmental future. We're working toward a future where young people across Africa combine scientific training, hands-on community experience, and the confidence to lead, not just take part in, the continent's response to environmental and energy challenges, from grassroots action all the way into the careers and industries that shape it.

OUR STORY

Daniel Olajuyigbe presenting DACTION's ocean conservation work

2022

DACTION won its first international grant, partnering with RESWAYE to bring ocean conservation to five secondary schools in Akure.

It didn't start with a plan. It started with a question.

DACTION Initiative began in 2022, more as an inspiration to get involved in sustainability and impact than a fixed plan. Daniel Olajuyigbe, then an undergraduate engineering student at Afe Babalola University, kept noticing the same gap wherever he looked: there was real opportunity for young Nigerians to get involved in sustainability and climate work, but most didn't know it existed, or how to actually make the most of it when it did. Most programs in the space were also built with adults in mind, not designed around youth-led action, so there was little real room for young people to lead. DACTION was built to answer that gap.

He started DACTION to close that gap: an organization young people would run themselves, choosing what to work on, raising the funding, and answering honestly for what worked.

From the beginning, that work has stayed inside three consistent interests: ocean conservation, renewable energy, and sustainability in careers and business. DACTION's first real test came the same year, when the organization won its first international grant and partnered with RESWAYE to bring ocean conservation education and recycling infrastructure into five secondary schools in Akure. It proved that a small, youth-led team could plan a real campaign and see it through.

From there, DACTION kept pursuing whichever opportunity fit those three interests best. Coastal cleanups and reforestation in Lekki followed in 2024. An energy dialogue on hydrogen's place in Nigeria's future came in 2025, pulling in an NNPC executive and international researchers from Germany and Canada. Now, DACTION is preparing a soil and food-systems summit at a Nigerian university.

$4,000+

in competitively won grants

500+

students reached directly

flagship campaigns delivered

Nigerian states reached

Four campaigns, most recent first.

DACTION Earth Summit: Compost, Cultivate, Conserve (2026)

A full-day summit on soil health, composting, and sustainable food systems at the Federal University of Technology Akure, bringing informal youth waste workers in as co-facilitators alongside students.

Hydrogen Horizons: Engineering Renewable Energy Solutions (2025)

An energy dialogue, held in person and online, exploring hydrogen’s role in the energy transition, connecting an NNPC executive and international researchers from Germany and Canada with Nigerian students and early-career engineers.

Youth vs. Climate Change (2024)

Beach cleanups across five sites in Lekki and Ajah, a 20-tree reforestation planting at a public secondary school, and a public artivism event blending pottery, painting, and climate education.

Ocean Conservation from the Classroom (2022)

DACTION's first campaign: ocean conservation education, donated recycling bins, and a student artivism competition delivered across five secondary schools in Akure, Ondo State.

The problems aren't separate, so we don't treat them that way.

DACTION's work sits inside three consistent interests: ocean conservation, renewable energy, and sustainability in careers and business. Every campaign we've run traces back to one of those three, whether that's a classroom conservation drive, a hydrogen energy meetup, or an upcoming soil health summit. We go after the grants and opportunities that fit those interests, and that's what actually decides what we work on each year, not a lack of focus.

We believe the long-term fix for sustainability is getting it built into how careers and businesses actually operate, not treated as a side project. But that only works if young people get involved first: out in their communities, building awareness, running advocacy, delivering real programs, and seeing for themselves that change is possible. That street-level experience is what eventually carries people into the kind of careers and leadership roles where sustainability gets built in for good.

Working across several fronts also reflects who's actually on our team. Our volunteers and directors come from different backgrounds and care about different pieces of the sustainability picture, engineering, data, communications, conservation science, energy, advocacy, so giving each project room to match those interests means more people doing work they're genuinely invested in, and a stronger, more varied track record to show for it.

We're actively growing on all three fronts at once: deeper ocean and coastal conservation work, expanded renewable energy programming, and continued youth advocacy and storytelling. We're building on partnerships like the Captain Planet Foundation while staying open to new collaborations that share our commitment to youth-led, evidence-based environmental action.

Get in touch