Joshua Amponsem, Ghana

I founded Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO), and designed the Sustainable Community Project (SCP) in 2018, with a vision to support peri-urban communities unities in Ghana to establish community-based circular waste management models. Currently, over 60% of peri-urban waste is organic and can be utilized to enrich soils amidst periodic droughts and floods. The SCP adopts a zero-waste approach to empower community members to set up social enterprises and provide green jobs where:

• Compost is produced from organic waste and sold to organic farmers

• Agricultural waste is converted into charcoal briquette to create employment and reduce deforestation from wood charcoal production.