Innovator Joyce Sikwese won the 2022 African Youth Adaptation Solutions Challenge (YouthADAPT Challenge) at the Cop 27 held in Egypt.

She won the award alongside Ulaya Mwale, bagging $100 000 (about K100 million) grant each.

The YouthADAPT challenge boosts sustainable job creation by supporting youth-led innovations in climate change adaptation and resilience across Africa.

And the duo was part of the 20 young people who received the awards at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

In a written response from China where she is pursuing a two-year postgraduate degree in enterprise management, Joyce said her innovation was inspired by the difficulties in accessing technologies to cope with the impacts of climate change and high costs of farm inputs, including fertilisers.

Armed with these challenges, Joyce, the co-founder and business development manager for Green Impact Technologies, was motivated to champion the innovative, market-driven circular economy model, to support smallholder farmers in increased productivity and adapt to climate change.

This is done by producing organic fertiliser and distributing portable solar water pumps for irrigation farming.

The organic fertiliser branded as M’bwezera Nthaka that she innovated, is affordable and is distributed to smallholder farmers through agro-dealers, cooperatives, and associations who operate as Green Impact Technologies’ sales agents.

She says: “M’bwezera Nthaka increases organic matter in the soil, which in turn releases the food [nutrients] to the crops. It also improves soil structure, texture and aeration, leading to an increase in soils’ water retention abilities and stimulating root development which reduces soil erosion in the process.

“The affordable Pay-As-You-Go solar water pumps offer a solution that simultaneously contributes to food security, climate resilience and global poverty reduction, while supporting these farmers in building economic independence as they are able to produce all year round.”

Joyce further explains that M’bwezera Nthaka organic fertiliser is produced from bio-slurry, compost and poultry manure; which means they are producing something valuable from wastes.

This will, in turn, help create a clean environment and contribute to the reduction of some diseases currently facing the country, such as Cholera.

“In addition, the distribution of portable solar water pump climate smart agriculture technologies is replaced by labour-intensive technologies such as watering canes. The pumps which use solar energy—a renewable source of power—has an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating climate change which is critical to protecting humans as opposed to the use of diesel-powered water pumps for irrigation,” the 29-year-old says.

With the $100 000 award, Joyce plans to buy an organic fertiliser processing machine to accelerate the production process and effectively meet demand.

Apart from that, she will partner with some agro-dealers in the trading centres to ease the accessibility of the innovations, facilitate a shift in food security, economic empowerment, climate mitigation and adaptation among smallholder farmers within three to five years.

“Our goal is to create over 250 jobs in the next three years and impact over 500 000 smallholder farmers so they can gain access to affordable climate-smart technologies, organic fertilisers and access to markets for their produce,” she says.

All in all, Joyce believes that Malawi can make a difference in mitigating climate change and its effects, from the way people travel, to the electricity they use, the food they eat and things they buy.

“Saving the environment starts with us and it is our responsibility to act against these terrible changes to preserve the planet for future generations by encouraging each other on the use of renewable energies,” she counsels.

Nonetheless, getting where she is was never a walk in the park as she faced a lot of challenges growing up.

Her father, a driver working in the civil service, struggled to raise funds for her education.

“It was never easy for him to pay school fees, books, printing costs, food and accommodation while I was studying at the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources [Luanar].

“I would buy lolly-pop sweets in town and sell to my fellow students. I used to carry the packets of sweets everywhere, even to class, to grow my money and cover other expenses at school,” says the youthful innovator.

As Joyce went around the hostels selling the sweets, friends would laugh at her and others openly asked her what her problem was, to be going room by room selling sweets.

“I understood them because I did not look like my problems; hence, it was hard for people to understand. I think knowing who I am, where I am coming from, hard work, perseverance and determination was key and still remains

the key to who I am today,” she says.

Born on May 3 1994 at Kaseye Hospital in Chitipa, Joyce is the first born of the three children born to Mr. and Mrs. Bright Kanyamula Sikwese from Chinunkha Village, Traditional Authority Mwabulambya in Chitipa.

She attended several primary schools in Chitipa where she lived with her aunt—a primary school teacher at the time—before joining her parents in Lilongwe in 2005.

Upon sitting the Primary School Leaving Certificate Examinations (PSLCE), Joyce was selected to Bwaila Secondary School.

Her parents later transferred her to Mlanda Girls Secondary School following the financial challenges they faced, covering her daily transportation costs between Area 25 and Bwaila.

She attained her Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) from Mlanda in 2011 and sat the university entrance examinations in 2012. Unfortunately, she missed the selection.

When she applied again in 2013, she was selected to Luanar where she read for Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Enterprise Development and Microfinance completing in 2017.

Her professional career started in 2018 when she met Admore Chiumia—the founder of Green Impact Technologies whom she works alongside with, to accelerate alternative energy technologies for pyramid customers who have no access to electricity, clean energy sources for cooking, innovative energy technologies for farming and energy technologies for cooling to reduce post-harvest losses.

“Since 2018, we have been distributing various technologies such as solar home systems, bio-gas for cooking, solar water pumps and organic fertilisers,” she says.

In 2021, Joyce, received a Chinese Government Scholarship to pursue a two-year post-graduate degree in enterprise management at Capital University of Economics and Business.

In her free time, she likes catching up with her family, relatives and friends who are her source of inspiration.

Now, when she looks back to receiving the international award, she is still excited and honoured.

“At the back of my mind, I see lots of smiles on the faces of smallholder farmers in rural communities, because they have access to affordable fertiliser and climate smart agriculture technologies for irrigation farming,” she concludes.

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