Tryphine Kemigisha

Tryphine Kemigisha is a social entrepreneur, wastepreneur, and environmentalist who is passionate about creating solutions around environmental sustainability and women’s empowerment. This is what gives her purpose. She is the founder of Gewuza Foundation, which unlocks the potential of marginalized groups of people from the bondage of unemployment and underemployment while changing the narrative of plastic waste in Africa. She innovated the MUNAKU SCHOOL BAG, which extends studies at night for students and pupils off the grid. Made from recycled plastic waste, these bags are waterproof and provide an opportunity for empowerment, especially for those involved in the process of making them. Tryphine believes that skilling those at the bottom of the pyramid is the first step to alleviate poverty in the most marginalized communities. She is a skills specialist and has trained hundreds if not thousands of marginalized youth and women to turn plastic waste into different products with inherent value. Tryphine is looking forward to changing the narrative of Africa towards waste so that communities should move away from collecting and dumping to more sustainable ways of seeing it as a resource.