From Ideas to Action: What Young Women Built with the Cedar Prize

 



An idea is easy to have. Turning one into something useful for other people is much harder.

That was the challenge behind the Cedar Prize Social Impact Competition, a collaboration between CedarRise Initiative for Human Development and Uzommiri Study Centre created to give female undergraduates an opportunity to take their ideas beyond the classroom.

Under the theme “Think, Act, Impact” and the broader concept TerraVerde — Where Dreams Grow, five multidisciplinary teams developed project proposals addressing challenges connected to the Sustainable Development Goals. Three teams—BELAH Impact, Magenta Heart and Team RISE—made it to the final stage, where they were required to put their ideas into practice.

And that is where the competition became more than a competition.

Three ideas, three different approaches

BELAH Impact took its project, Achi Rise 2025, to Achi, Enugu State, combining healthcare, education and women's empowerment. More than 125 people received free medical consultations, treatment and medication, while dental services reached 30 people. Women also participated in practical workshops covering soap making, cosmetology, perfume production and financial literacy.

The project returned in a second phase focused on children, introducing pupils at Umuowulu Community School to creative activities, sports and practical skills, alongside donations of sports equipment.

For Magenta Heart, the challenge was digital access.

Their E-Learning for All project provided 22 public secondary school students in Abakpa-Nike with three weeks of digital literacy training. Students worked with Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint and participated in computer-based test simulations designed to make digital learning and examinations less unfamiliar.

Team RISE approached educational disadvantage through mentorship.

Its Ripple Effect project connected university volunteers with secondary school mentors, who in turn supported girls in underserved communities. More than 50 girls in Obiagu participated in literacy and numeracy activities between May and August 2025. A parents' forum at the end of the programme brought families into the conversation, reinforcing the importance of community involvement in sustaining educational support.

The projects were different, but they shared something important: the participants were not asked simply to describe a solution. They had to test one.

That shift—from proposal to implementation—introduced a different kind of learning. Teams had to work with communities, respond to practical limitations, collaborate with others and think about what would happen after the project ended.

For the beneficiaries, the results were equally tangible: healthcare services were delivered, women gained practical skills, students developed digital competencies, and girls received academic and peer mentorship.

More than a competition

At the Grand Finale, BELAH Impact emerged as the first-place winner, followed by Team RISE in second place and Magenta Heart in third.

But the ranking was only one part of what the Cedar Prize set out to achieve.

The more significant outcome was seeing young women move through the full process of social impact: identifying a problem, developing an idea, testing it in a real community and learning from the experience.

For CedarRise, that is the value of creating spaces where young people are trusted not only to imagine solutions, but to take responsibility for bringing them to life.

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