Daniel Sopdie, a Wartburg College senior from Cameroon, has been named one of “Five Black Students to Watch in 2014” by the Clinton Foundation.

Sopdie was recognized by the organization, founded by former President Bill Clinton, which cited “a new generation of black change-makers poised to impact urgent issues in the United States and around the world.”

He will speak at the Clinton Global Initiative University gathering March 21-23 in Phoenix, where 1,000 students will gather to develop solutions to societal challenges. Linda Nkosi, a Wartburg senior from Swaziland, will join Sopdie at the conference.

Together with Aseya Kakar, a senior from Afghanistan, they used a Clinton Foundation grant last summer to set up biogas digesters at the Malindza refugee camp in Swaziland in southeast Africa, converting animal and plant waste into methane as a sustainable energy source.

The refugee camp is home to 400 people who have escaped African conflicts in central and western Africa.

The Clinton Foundation lauded their work, stating, “Most people would rather not think about animal waste. Daniel Sopdie thinks that’s a huge mistake.”

The Wartburg students, it added, were involved in “training refugees to become biogas technicians and implementing sustainable solutions for the community. To help relieve families from the constant search for firewood, Daniel’s team built a kitchen equipped with smoke-free biogas stoves. They also constructed latrine toilets that stave off diseases such as cholera, typhoid and infectious hepatitis.”

A Swaziland newspaper reported that the beneficiaries were appreciative, quoting a refugee named “Sam.”

“We are able to cook ourselves a meal at least once a week,” he said. “We normally cook on Sundays, and we do not need to spend much because we fuel the stove using cow dung, which we collect around the community.”

Sopdie said the biogas digesters will reduce the need for firewood and curb deforestation.

At the Clinton conference, he will discuss “innovative and economic waste management opportunities such as capturing methane, recycling products, creating secondhand markets or even repurposing storm water.”

Sopdie hopes to replicate the energy model elsewhere in Swaziland and throughout southern Africa.

The Wartburg students involved in the project are Davis United World College Scholars, a program founded by financier Shelby Davis and Dr. Philip Geier, a former history professor, that provides 2,500 international students with scholarships to study in the United States after graduating from two-year programs at one of 12 UWC campuses on five continents.