Who we are
Mariann Bassey Olsson is a Nigerian lawyer, environmental and human rights advocate, and campaigner who is Deputy Director at Environmental Rights Action / Friends of the Earth, Nigeria. Nigeria Women Annual 2025 listed her as one of 100 Leading Women.
Nnimmo Bassey is a Nigerian architect, environmental activist, author and poet. He is founder and Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation. He is also Laureate of the Right Livelihood Award (2010), winner of the Wallenberg Medal (2024) and has received numerous other accolades.
Tom Wakeford is an ecologist, action researcher and award-winning communicator on issues relating to environmental justice. Most recently, he has trained as a stand-up comedian. Based in the UK, he has been part of the Seeding Reparations coalition since it formed in 2022.
Mariann, Nnimmo and Tom established Get Up Stand Up to bring joy to as many people as possible, soothe burnout among environmental justice activists, and address some thorny issues for us all.
In the coming months Get Up Stand Up will host events to inspire eco-activists to develop their potential for comedy in both Nigeria and the UK.
Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, Nigeria (FoEN) is a Nigerian advocacy non-governmental organization founded on January 11, 1993, to deal with environmental human rights issues in Nigeria. We are the Nigerian chapter of Friends of the Earth International (FoEI).
We were the co-ordinating NGO in Africa for many years for Oilwatch International, the global South network of groups concerned about the effects of oil on the environment of people who live in oil-bearing regions. Oilwatch was founded in 1995 (in Ecuador), in the aftermath of local struggles against oil companies such as Shell (in Nigeria) and Texaco (now Chevron) in Ecuador. Both cases have given rise to well-known court cases where damages in the billions of euros are being claimed at present. We were the winner of the Sophie Prize.
Our organization is dedicated to the defense of human ecosystems in terms of human rights, and to the promotion of environmentally responsible governmental, commercial, community, and individual practices in Nigeria through the empowerment of local people.
We are also the coordinating NGO for the Nigerian Tobacco Control Alliance. The organization’s committed struggles for environmental human rights have won it recognition through awards such as Sophie Prize (1998) for excellence and courage in the struggle for environmental Justice and the Bloomberg Award for Tobacco control activism (2009).
Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) is an ecological think tank organisation advocating for environmental/climate justice and food sovereignty in Nigeria and Africa at large. Dissatisfied with the impunity in our environment, we believe that:
The rights of Mother Earth must be safeguarded.
Communities should be equipped to voice protest against oppression and pollution in their environment.
Justice must prevail in our engagement with the environment and nature’s cycles at policy, corporate, and individual level.
We believe in locally generated knowledge and practice, and the need for people-centred dialogues.
Our thinking is ecological minded, rooted in an ideology of living in harmony with nature and the environment.
We are focused on unearthing the systemic roots (social, political and economic factors) of environmental and food challenges.
Contact us
Interested in getting involved or coming to an in-person event?
Email us at: ecostandup@gmail.com or fill in this form.