Mwayi Kampesi, the founder of Planet Green Africa, leads with courage and passion. 

For as long as she could remember, she cared deeply about protecting the environment and empowering women. So, it came as no surprise when she made the decision to leave her job as an Architect to start her first business, In House-Interiors, in 2014, to merge her two passions for the environment and female empowerment. Through In-House Interiors, Mwayi manufactures interior décor and green interior accessories using environmentally friendly raw materials. 

Three years after the successful launch of her business, she founded Planet Green Africa, with the same purpose of protecting the environment and empowering women. 

Planet Green Africa is a renewable energy company that produces eco-friendly cooking briquettes from recycled agricultural waste while closely working with the local women farmers to procure the agricultural waste. The organization partners with local women groups to sell the final briquette product. 

It’s a smart solution in the fight against climate change – creating a cleaner, safer cooking fuel option for the people in Malawi while saving forestry and championing women’s entrepreneurship. 

For this work, Mwayi has received several awards and recognitions including a special mention in Forbes Magazine as a 2017 Forbes Africa 30 under 30 recipient. She was included in the 100 Top Start-Ups under the World Youth Forum in 2018 and received the Obama Foundation African Leader of 2019 award. Recently, she was listed among the 100 Faces of Hope Awards at the African Women Summit. 

These awards pale in comparison to the impact Mwayi is making through Planet Green Africa. 

Today, the organization has a total of 516 smallholder farmers that have been economically empowered. These farmers make an extra income from selling agricultural waste that they could have otherwise just burnt in their fields. Mwayi is most proud of the 25 women that serve as business partners and business owners, selling charcoal briquettes in kiosks in their communities. 

While this work is done from a place of personal passion, Mwayi and her team, are supported by The Queen Elizabeth II Commonwealth Trust (QECT). 

“We have had a wonderful journey and a fulfilling and valuable relationship with QECT, we truly love being a part of the family of the QECT benefices. QECT has been our supporting partner since 2020. Through the support that we have received, both financial and technical support has enabled Project Green Africa to grow its impact. The financial support has enabled us to buy machinery and enabled us to increase our production capacity by 400%”. 

Mwayi Kampesi, founder of PGA

Since its partnership with QECT, Planet Green Africa has increased the number of women smallholder farmers from 116 to 516 in a two-year period. The organization has also increased the number of kiosks in communities from 10 to 25. This means 15 more women now own businesses as suppliers of charcoal briquette. 

“We have increased the adoption of the use of sustainable clean cooking fuel in households by 10% in the communities that we currently serve. The funding has also enabled us to reach out to more than 13,500 people through community sensitization programs on environmental conservation.”

Mwayi Kampesi, founder of PGA

Mwayi and her team have their eyes fixed on ensuring Planet Green Africa expands its reach and becomes a leading organization in the supply of sustainable clean energy solutions in Malawi. 

We are currently in Blantyre, but in the future, we would like to have a bigger factory that will be able to service the other three major cities in Malawi.

As a young entrepreneur, Planet Green Africa was entirely started from a personal passion and savings. It was not easy to find financing to grow the dream. However, QECT came and allowed us the opportunity to grow. 

Before QECT, we did not have a defined structure to enable us to work effectively, but with the technical support from QECT, we have been able to create an organizational structure that now enables us to be more effective and efficient in production. Their support has built a lot of momentum for us and growth.” 

Mwayi Kampesi, founder of PGA

Today, Planet Green Africa’s briquette burns up to three times longer than traditional firewood fuel, emits more heat and has no toxic gas emissions. This provides local households with a safer alternative for cooking.  

The briquettes are also much cheaper than firewood and charcoal, selling at half the price to ensure accessibility for all. 

Learn more of how you can show support to organizations like Planet Green Africa on The Queen Elizabeth II Commonwealth Trust’s Get Involved page. 

Follow Planet Green Africa on Instagram and Facebook. 

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Recognising that many of these challenges were rooted in poverty through a lack of access to, and education about clean energy sources, Daniel founded IYAN to empower the local community to protect nature through a number of conservation and sustainable livelihood efforts.

Firstly, IYAN’s Rural Clean Energy Access Programme provides affordable modern energy saving stoves and solar powered lighting to rural communities, helping them reduce household wood consumption by over 50%. IYAN partners with youth and women’s community associations to drive awareness of clean energy and its positive impact on the environment and their health, and support a number of women’s groups through their social enterprise arm, selling clean energy cooking stoves at affordable prices to maximise accessibility. Secondly, IYAN’s Green The Hill campaign, which has planted over 150,000 trees in just 3 years, helps to restore lost vegetation cover and protect the ground from further erosion. Finally, IYAN runs Eco-Investment projects that educate locals on green enterprises which utilise unused land and fragile ecosystems, such as beekeeping and fish farming.

Since 2020, IYAN has received unrestricted grant of 35,000 GBP to implement a rural clean energy access project. IYAN is promoting rural access to affordable solar and eco-stoves as opposed to the previous traditional three stone wood burning stoves used by people which produced high levels of carbon and consumed a lot of wood. The project is mainly implemented through women village saving groups which pay for the products on interest free credit to increase affordability to underserved homes which can`t afford to do upfront payments. Through QECT support, IYAN established an eco-stove production workshop as sustainable model to deliver on clean cooking. This has changed IYAN from an eco-stove dealer to a producer.

IYAN have now provided clean cooking to 10,500 homes through eco-stoves. Institutional eco-stoves have been installed in 12 schools. They have supported solar lighting in up to 700 homes and supported 42 solar based businesses. These include solar saloons, cinemas and phone charging accessing solar from IYAN`s revolving fund. These clean energy enterprises employ 67 youths who are improving their living standards by giving them economic opportunities to find work.

The greatest impact has been on rural women who have been most affected by the energy crisis in Uganda. IYAN worked with local youth and women’s groups to make eco stoves accessible and affordable. Over 70% of the stoves are now sold through women groups.

As part of IYAN’s Green the Hill campaign, a total of 180,000 trees have been planted in an attempt to restore lost vegetation. IYAN was able to give the community free seedlings of Indigenous trees that were endangered. Also, an Eco-investment project by the NGO has seen the establishment of 200 fishponds and 300 beehives as income generators.

Undoubtedly as a unique donor, QECT also provides capacity building to IYAN, enabling Daniel and his team to establish effective operational systems and necessary policies. The guidance received allowed them to develop and operationalize the financial policy, safeguarding policy, monitoring and evaluation plan and strategic plan among others. These have been fundamental to creating change and making informed decisions.

“Before QECT’s support, we didnt know anything about organizational policies. This meant we were so prone to risks during our operations. Today, there is something to refer to for any challenge encountered during operation.” – Daniel Misaki

Teamwork makes the dream work

The QECT partnership has had made IYAN stronger ensuring long term sustainable growth and impact. Daniel and his team now have a solid five-year plan through funding and capacity building.

“As rural youth with a big dream but with limited capacity to make its impact realistic and sustainable, QECT`s capacity building first put us in a state of mindfulness and high vision of risk management and sustaining impact. These was through sessions on planning, reporting and system building.” – Daniel Misaki

As a result of QECT funding, IYAN’s Eco Stove project is steadily growing and hopes to become self-sustainable in the near future. As a young leader Daniel has learnt a lot through QECT’s guidance. From childhood he defied the odds within his community and demonstrated that his dreams are not mere wishes but realistic and achievable.

IYAN has improved his confidence and ability to manage high impact projects whilst creating sustainable relationships with stakeholders. Peer support and training has also been a lifeline for young leaders like Daniel.

“QECT linkage to the youth hub has provided me an opportunity to hear from other youth on how they overcome barriers they face. This learning opportunity has been an eye opener on how to handle various dynamics.” – Daniel Misaki

Daniel’s advice to other young entrepreneurs is to remain persistent.

“It takes a heart of dreamer to start but a warrior`s heart to win your dream. Therefore, love it, and be passionate and courageous enough to defy the growth dynamics.” – Daniel Misaki

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