In its vision to support the transit from poverty to development among youth participant in our programs, UYISENGA NI IMANZI has organized a Round-table on Icyerekezo/Vision Economic Development Project, on July 29, 2016, at UMUBANO HOTEL. The Round-table was untitled: “Profitable farming, realistic motivation to confront the mindset of viewing agriculture as employment of last resort“.
The main purpose of this Round-table was to share UNM Model inspiring young people to become successful agricultural entrepreneurs and build lives of prosperity, positive achievements building a commercial value-chain approach and treating agriculture as a business,with emphasize on the horticulture particularly watermelon and tomatoes.
This has shown at this trend, that “Icyerekezo horticulture farming” was established to make commercial agriculture profitable, knowledge-intensive and attractive for young people in Rwamagana district. The success is based on approach based on “participation, partnerships and sustainability built on local community’s assets, involving community members during the need assessment, the conception, the implementation and the decision-making process”.
“ICYEREKEZO horticulture farming” is a three year project(2014-2017) funded by Comic Relief and World Jewish Relief. It was conceived to offer a comprehensive package of services to enable 1487 young orphaned smallholders in three rural Districts (RWAMAGANA-KAYONZA and NYANZA) to become modern agricultural entrepreneurs, significantly and sustainably increase their income and make a difference in their communities through horticulture.
So far, 1153 project participants have made 81,983,750 in 6 seasons (13,663,958 each 4 months on average).
The Round-table has grouped different actors and has proven to be a supporting network around the way ICYEREKEZO horticulture farming and the capacity building support are making a positive and enduring difference in the young peoples’ lives and their communities. Furthermore it has shown that there is a need of platform enabling participants to explore how by complement one another in sectors of life; the agriculture sector can be a motivating profession for young generation to reduce unemployment
