At 19 @AyebareDenise chose climate How @AyebareDenise Built This @AyebareDenise started @BetterLife_Int with about $200 and an ambitious idea idea: that climate action should do more than raise awareness- it should leave communities, more self-reliant, & better equipped for the next challenge. Today, as a multiple award-winning cii-mate activist, advocate and @Forbes 30 Under 30 honouree, her work spans climate action, youth empowerment, sustainable development & environ-mental justice. Yet behind the recognition is a build er's mindset shaped by one question: what can remain when the project ends? In this edition's How @AyebareDenise Built This, @AyebareDenise reflects on building an organisation around resilience rather than dependency, finding influence beyond the conference room, and creating systems she hopes will continue long after her own name is no longer attached to them. What was the turning point that moved your work from raising awareness to creating measurable impact? The turning point was when @AyebareDenise stopped asking, "What can we give?" and started asking. "What can remain?" Awareness is important, but awareness alone does not feed a family or protect someone from the next drought. I realized that if a project ends and all the progress ends with it, then we have completed an activity, but we have not created development. That shaped how @AyebareDenise built @BetterLife_Int. We do not want communities to depend on Better Life, a donor or another organisation. Support should be a bridge. It should help people rebuild their ability to produce food, earn an income, save, access markets, receive climate information and make decisions collectively. Our numbers matter, but they are not the whole story. The real question is whether a woman is less vulnerable than she was before we arrived. Can she continue producing after the funding ends? Can she withstand another shock without waiting for another organisation to rescue her? That is when @AyebareDenise work moved from awareness to building systems that can survive beyond us. Cc #BetterLifeInt #MrinfluencerUg #MrInfluencerUgReports @CLIMEDIA256 @MbabaziFridah @Mbabazifarida12 @victoria_nyanzi

While @AyebareDenise was in Kigali, Rwanda 🇷🇼 Speaking at Africa Food Systems Forum 2026 on something that should concern all of us: how Africa feeds itself in a changing climate Thank you too @BetterLife_Int @AGRA_Africa @bankimoon_org #MrinfluencerUg #MrInfluencerUgReports