Soil, Sweat, and Stubborn Hope

She is not the icon we are accustomed to seeing, this woman with her head down and sleeves rolled up. She doesn’t stand above others but is one with her community, drawing them together and forward with her, sharing successes. Today, we introduce you to Moombi, Panh Ô, Flower, Minati, and Dayana. No fancy titles. No corner offices. Just mothers, farmers, community leaders, and quiet revolutionaries. Nominated by five organizations on Restor, their stories embody tectonic impact—one that thrives in the corners of restoration. Consider this a salute to women who bend not to despair but to the earth itself, whispering, “Grow.”

Moombi Kitosisio: Sowing hope in the dust of despair

Featured Story Nominated by JustDiggit

“The drought threatened our livelihoods and our culture.” Moombi recalls 2009, when dry spells wiped out her entire livestock herd, a blow that still lingers. For the Maasai community, livestock are more than wealth; they are identity. In response, Moombai rose:  she rallied 26 women from Meshenani Village in Kenya to form the Tudumunye Women Group—Tudumunye, meaning “rise” in Maasai, a battle cry against hunger, patriarchal norms, and a climate spiraling out of balance.

Their solution was humble yet essential: grass seed banks. Partnering with Amboseli Ecosystem Trust and JustDiggit, Moombi’s group began restoring degraded rangelands by sowing native grasses to anchor soil, retain water, and rebuild ecosystems. Two years of unrelenting droughts tested their resolve. “We’d kneel in the dust, tending seedlings under a burning sky,” Moombi shares. 

In 2024, the rains came, and with them, a harvest that defied expectation: 1 ton of grass seeds and over Ksh. 763,200 earned. Each woman walked home with three goats and Ksh. 19,000 in hand: a lifeline for school fees, medicine, and dignity. The group has since pooled resources to buy six calves, symbolizing a future where the land and its people can thrive.

Moombi’s fight continues— against droughts, inequality, and time. But her legacy grows.

To support Moombi and the Meshenani Grass Seed Bank, click here.

Panh Ô Kayapó

Featured Story Nominated by the International Conservation Fund of Canada and Kayapo Project partner Instituto Kabu

Photo courtesy: Karina Iliescu from Global Witness

At 44, Panh Ô Kayapó is a leader within the Instituto Kabu, representing Kayapo Project communities within the Baú Indigenous Land in Brazil. Her people depend upon the Curuá River for their survival, yet from the age of nine, she recalls the sounds of gold dredges along the river, resulting in contamination by mining companies and cooperatives. 

Her activism started when she watched Tuíre Kayapó, a pioneering female leader, confront a Brazilian energy company with a machete at a public hearing, stopping a dam on the Xingu River. “That moment,” Panh Ô says, “taught me: silence is surrender.”

In 2024, she led her own strike: women warriors, babies strapped to their backs, marched into the jungle to expel miners. Fast forward today, Panh battles on two fronts: in the forest and in meetings where politicians sideline Indigenous rights. She slams projects like the Ferrogrão railway, a proposed infrastructure plan that would slice through Kayapó lands, inviting miners and deforestation. “They call it ‘development,’” she comments. “We call it theft. Our children gather fruit here. Our ancestors’ bones are here. We are this land.”

To stand with Panh Ô Kayapó and her people, click here.

Flower Ezekiel Msuya

Featured Story Nominated by Nzatu

Flower Ezekiel Msuya dreamed of a different kind of green, one that swayed underwater. As a botany student, she fell for seaweed: an alien, slimy marvel her peers dismissed. “But algae,” she insists, “aren’t just plants. They’re a possibility.”

Possibility, however, met resistance. As a Christian woman in Tanzania’s Muslim-majority coastal communities, Flower faced ridicule when she claimed seaweed could revolutionize diets and economies. “They laughed when I said we’d eat it, sell it, thrive on it,” she recalls. 

In 2006, Flower brewed the first seaweed product in Tanzanian history, a humble cosmetic cream. Today, her creations fuel an industry. Women and youth across Africa grind seaweed using her locally invented grinder, turning tides into income. But her true triumph is the Climate-smart Tubular Net technology, imported from Brazil and adapted for East Africa that helps farming seaweed in deeper waters while protecting fragile marine ecosystems. No more trampled corals, no forests razed for wooden pegs. 

Over the years, she’s transformed seaweed from “strange slime” to a staple in kitchens and cosmetics. “My mother grew pumpkins,” Flower smiles. “I grow change. Passion can reroute even the stubbornest river.” 

To know more about Flower’s seaweed revolution, click here. 

Minati Munda

Featured Story Nominated by Kheyti

For years, Minati’s family teetered on the edge, running a tiny grocery shop with limited income. The shop’s earnings were inconsistent, and customers buying on credit made it difficult for her family to meet their basic needs. She turned to her crops as a last hope, but the conventional open-field farming methods used by her family exposed the land to insect infestations, reducing yields and profits. 

Then came greenhouse farming with Kheyti’s nethouse. Inside its protective mesh, tomatoes and greens thrived, untouched by pests. Yields doubled. Profits bloomed. “For the first time,” she says, “the land owed us nothing.”

Her biggest win is stability and freedom from scarcity, with no more empty plates and sleepless nights. She can now dream of opportunities for her children, and through her success, she is offering alternatives to her neighbors, too.

“The nethouse isn’t just wire and shade,” she says. “It’s freedom. It’s my children’s laughter echoing in classrooms I once couldn’t afford.”

To sow hope in farmers like Minati, click here.

Dayana Blanco

Featured Story Nominated by Uru Uru Team

Dayana Blanco is an Indigenous Aymara woman from Bolivia who grew up witnessing the pristine beauty of Uru Uru Lake before pollution, mining, and climate change began threatening its existence. “The flamingos left. The reeds rotted. Our stories were drowning,” Dayana recalls.

Inspired by childhood memories of flamingos soaring freely and elders building Totora boats by the lake, Dayana co-founded the Uru Uru Team, a pioneering community-led ecological restoration using nature-based solutions.

Their solution was simple: floating rafts, grids of recycled plastic bottles buoying native plants that suck toxins from the poisoned lake. Under Dayana’s leadership, local wetland areas have been successfully restored through community-built floating rafts that purify water using native plants. 

She has empowered Indigenous women by establishing a community garden, generating income for restoration efforts. Her work has not only revitalized degraded ecosystems but also strengthened Indigenous resilience and traditional knowledge.

Dayana has safeguarded critical wetland habitats and restored the ecological balance of Uru Uru Lake, benefiting seven Indigenous communities and 76 bird species. She has mobilized youth and elders alike, transforming restoration into a collective movement.

To join Dayana’s tide of resistance, click here

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A note of thanks: We would like to thank our nominating partners, Justdiggit, Uru Uru Team, Kheyti, The Kayapo Project (International Conservation Fund of Canada), and Nzatu, for their invaluable role in spotlighting courageous, unsung heroes. Thank you for championing their stories and driving meaningful change.