GearUp! Competition Winners Arrive in Ghana – Fieldwork Begins in Damongo

The winners of the GearUp! “From Ideas to Reality – Youth for Sustainable Development” innovation competition have arrived in Ghana. Levente Varga, Clement Nkululeko and Zsombor Donkó have already begun their four-week professional fieldwork in Damongo, where they are working together with local students and lecturers to put their projects into practice.

The “From Ideas to Reality – Youth for Sustainable Development” innovation competition, organised through the cooperation of the Africa Differently Foundation and the Tropical and Subtropical Development Council of the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE), has entered another important phase. The three winning students have arrived in Damongo, Ghana, where they have begun a month-long period of professional fieldwork.

Over the next four weeks, Levente Varga, Clement Nkululeko and Zsombor Donkó will work jointly on their projects with students and lecturers from Damongo College. This cooperation provides an opportunity to implement ideas that were previously developed in theory in a real local setting and to further develop them by drawing on the experience and knowledge of their Ghanaian partners, as well as the needs of local communities.

The students’ work focuses, among other areas, on reducing post-harvest losses, examining and demonstrating appropriate storage solutions, pest control, and mapping existing irrigation practices and opportunities. During the fieldwork, they will also collect data and gain first-hand experience of the region’s agricultural conditions and challenges.

The fieldwork in Damongo also offers participants a unique professional and cultural experience. Through direct on-site work, they will not only be able to test their own project ideas, but will also gain first-hand insight into local agricultural practices, the everyday challenges faced by farmers, and the environmental and social conditions in which the proposed solutions need to operate.

One of the key objectives of the GearUp! initiative is to connect young people’s knowledge and creativity with local experience and international cooperation. The next four weeks will therefore be about much more than implementing previously developed project ideas: they will also provide an opportunity for joint learning, the exchange of experience, and the development of solutions that respond to genuine local needs.

We wish Levente Varga, Clement Nkululeko and Zsombor Donkó, as well as their Ghanaian partners, every success in their work together over the coming four weeks.
The project is implemented with the support of the HAND Association and the European Union’s GearUP! programme.