The globally celebrated International Youth Day 2021 comes at the time when like in 2020 the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact all segments of the population. In fact, the surging death rates in Uganda due to Covid-19 in one month, June 2021 prompted President Y.K. Museveni to declare a total lockdown for the whole of July 2021, six months after the state had made pronouncements of a gradually phased re-opening. This intervention not only suspended various economic activities but affected the core of survival; the food supply chain
Young people in developing countries like Uganda are a vital resource in sustainably responding to challenges affecting food systems. However many youths in rural areas see limited future opportunities to make ends meet for themselves on the farms that their parents and grandparents have worked for decades. They perceive the agricultural sector as informal, vulnerable, and unattractive owing to the hard physical work, low wages, uncertainty, and dirtiness associated with gardening work.
Prosper Mama Africa, a non-profit organization in Uganda has for the past 2 years has centered its operations on empowering rural communities in Uganda to lead their own development out of poverty by availing mind and behavior shifting workshops that aim at empowering communities to embrace and communally benefit from improved agricultural practices.
So far, the organization is working hand in hand with communities in Western Uganda with a key interest in empowering young people (inclusive of the 15-25 age group) to take charge of their own social and economic prosperity using the village resilient model. The model puts adaptive mind shift training at the center of implementing key agricultural practices (as explained below) in communities. This way, the village resilient model directly addresses the key issues young people in rural areas face in a number of ways, that is;
- Low income and poverty at the household level.
- Youth unemployment by providing agriculture alternatives that appeal to the youth like …Bee Keeping – allows the youth the opportunity to have money-making opportunities using the basic skills of taming bees and harvesting honey. This way they also directly address the challenge of malnutrition especially among infants and ensure food security given that bees play a vital role in crop pollination.
- Malnutrition and food security through the Mama Kitchen gardens and poultry empower mostly the women and young girls. These interventions responding to ensure food access, providing a reliable source of nutrients in a home, and more so for them to feel empowered that they play a vital role in taking care of their homes.
- Climate-smart Agriculture Tree planting of Candlenut Trees and fruits trees for home are also the other ways through which the model responds creating a more youth-friendly and stimulating agricultural environment.
International Youth Day always seeks to highlight issues faced by youths globally and celebrate their resilience. Through this year’s theme, we believe that “Transforming Food Systems: Youth Innovation for Human and Planetary Health” will require:
- Easing access to knowledge, information, and education on agriculture for the young people: Prosper Mama Africa (PMA) has been doing mindset changing training and mentorship activities for rural farmers to integrate traditional or intergenerational knowledge and the use of new technologies, developing knowledge, skills, and talent of youth to further food security and nutrition.
- Access to land to the youth: In a country where agriculture is the backbone of the economy, young people have vast potential to make a tremendous and recognizable positive impact. Empowering youth involvement in agriculture by availing them with access to secure land tenure opportunities offers them a great opportunity to be productive towards advancing the country’s development. PMA started a relationship with The Church of Uganda’s three dioceses in Western Uganda, i.e.; North Ankole (Kiruhura & Kazo districts), Northwest Ankole (Ibanda), East Ruwenzori (Kamwenge, Kitagwenda) under the umbrella body “ERUNANWA”, whose aim is to jointly utilize resources like the church land to implement our development program; “Social-Economic Transformation of Anglican communities” (SETRAC) while utilizing local leaderships in the various communities to enhance agricultural project ownership and sustainability. With the ease of mobile phone internet access, young people in our areas of operation leverage the secure land opportunity to utilize modern agricultural practices and connect to the internet to obtain beneficial information such as agricultural tips.
- Access to financial service for the youth: One of the major reasons young people hesitate to engage in agriculture is having limited financial resources to invest. Very few of the youth population can afford to offer collateral that banks seek. Prosper Mama Africa provides capital requirements for items like tractors, quality seeds, fertilizer, harvesting equipment, irrigation equipment, and grain storage facilities in its areas of operation to aid the young people in these regions yield high-value crops and establishes connections with buyers as a way of dealing with the general financial constraints that youth often face while embracing sustainable food supply chain initiatives.
“Uganda needs rapid intervention to mitigate the food crisis. We need to conduct a quick audit of our food systems and the extent of disruption that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused. We need to conduct a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the pandemic’s impacts on livelihoods, food, and agriculture, markets as well as on poverty and nutrition.”
~David Lukwago; Founder & CEO Prosper Mama Africa
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