At COP30 in Belém, the 2025 Local Adaptation Champions Award Ceremony spotlighted four initiatives whose work is reshaping climate resilience in distinctly local and deeply human ways. H.E. Janja Lula da Silva, First Lady of Brazil, and H.R.H. Princess Dana Firas of Jordan gave feature addresses and presented awards to this year's winners. Preserving Legacies was honored for mobilizing heritage custodians from West Africa to the Himalayas, showing how ancestral knowledge can guide modern adaptation. In Nairobi’s informal settlements, the Foundation for Tomorrow was recognized for building community-based health and psychosocial support networks that have been a source of strength and hope in the face of climate vulnerabilities. High in the Andes, Aquafondo’s revival of centuries-old water-sowing systems demonstrated how traditional engineering can help secure Lima’s future water supply. And in Odisha’s Kalahandi region, AJSA’s support for thousands of tribal women farmers has sparked a quiet revolution, transforming once-marginalized growers into market leaders, decision-makers, and architects of resilience. Together, these winners illustrate the lived ingenuity of communities shaping climate solutions on their own terms.