Hello everyone,
I am Hesborn Apwoyo, Founder of Green Community Guardians in Busia, Kenya.
We are 20 youth, 15 women, volunteer CBO since 2022.
Our work: Sio River wetland is 60% degraded from charcoal cutting and banana waste dumping. We collect 300kg rotten bananas weekly from 5 markets that were dumped in Sio causing methane, and we wash, solar dry and turn into crisps, flour, mandazi and jam for 3 schools. Last month we rescued 300kg and made 1500 snacks.
We also collect water hyacinth plus maize husks plus peels, carbonize and press into clean briquettes for 100 families to replace charcoal.
30% profit funds 10000 bamboo and papyrus seedlings to restore 10ha Sio buffer. Zero waste model.
Expertise: Land water management, community livelihood, youth training, behaviour change from charcoal to briquettes.
Interest: Looking to connect with partners on circular economy, wetland restoration, low cost briquette presses and solar dryers. We have 500 Euro co-funding from Educators Lab and seek partners.
Experience: 3 years community clean ups, 2 tons Sio clean up done, school feeding with rescued food.
We are based in Busia at Kenya Uganda border.
Asante sana for welcoming us.
Hesborn
Phone +254706409326
Reg No DSD/40/230/01/20348921
A conservation biologist transitioning into policy, current interest is in governance and power balance of Nature based Solutions.
I'm Liane, and I am a WildLearning Specialist at WildTeam! I'm looking forward to getting to know you all!
For the last few years, I've been working in Seychelles, focusing on island and marine conservation efforts, particularly coral restoration and turtle nesting monitoring. If you ask me questions about coral, be prepared for me to get very nerdy about it! Prior to that, I was managing a project in Northern Thailand, where I worked closely with a local community to set up ethical elephant experiences in their village.
In my free time, I love running and hiking, and being anywhere in nature. I have also learnt to freedive in the last few years and enjoy doing that when possible. I'm really interested in talking to different people and learning from them and their unique experiences.
My background is mainly in species conservation, education and capacity exchange. I researched mother-young interactions in gorillas and chimpanzees, in captivity and the wild. After that, I worked for three years in Indonesia, where I developed and implemented youth ambassador and community engagement programmes on local and regional scales. I co-founded WildHub, a community of nature conservation professionals, in 2020 and work as their Community Lead. I am furthermore on the Advisory Board of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) at the University of Kent where I obtained my PhD on capacity development for conservation in 2022.