Recent Bangor High Graduate Wins International Award For Environmental Work

Amara Ifeji may have graduated high school last year here in Bangor and may have just started her adult life as an undergrad at Northeastern University, but she is already making a huge impact on our world already.

Ifeji is one of 24 people named worldwide last week to win an international environmental award from National Geographic.  Specifically, she has been named a National Geographic Young Explorer.  She won this award with the environmental work she has completed with Maine youths.

This honor is awarded to young people 17 to 25 years old who have made an impact on their community working on bettering environment and education of our environment concentrating on areas like conserving environment, food insecurity, pollution and water access.

Ifeji has been an environmental mentor for young people across the State of Maine along with her own work in the science of and advocacy in keeping and growing the health of our environment.

Ifeji not only gets the prestigious award but also some grant money which she plans on putting towards educating and mentoring Maine's future environmentalists through the Maine Environmental Educational Association

Ifeji's background includes being the daughter of Nigerian immigrants who moved to the United States in 2004. Her exposure to the Maine Environmental Changemakers Network during junior year at Bangor High was where she found her passion in the work she is pursuing today.  Her time at Bangor High also found her achieving greatly in science where she competed on multiple levels of state and national Science Fairs and winning $10,000 in college scholarships.

Ifeji even got on the North American Association for Environmental Education's list of '30 Under 30' in 2020 for her leadership and inspiration for the community here in Maine and the whole world.  See her profile and interview with the NAAEE on their website.

She was also featured in a powerful video representing racial justice that she would like to see in this very community that she grew up in.

There's so much more to come of Amara and we can't wait to see where her determination takes her!