Increase of youth employment in Rwanda

14-01-2020 13:47:16
Jobs jobs jobs project supports cooperatives in operating more professionally by involving youth in cooperative activities.

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Since June 2019, Agriterra is implementing its Jobs, Jobs, Jobs approach in six African countries, i.e. Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. It is a programme of 1,5 years (2019-2020). This project aims to stimulate business-oriented farmer cooperatives to create rural employment opportunities.

Ambitious young professionals are being offered the opportunity to gain work experience in rural farmer-led businesses at known Agriterra partners. Agriterra is co-financing the salary costs of the cooperatives that have enrolled into the programme and are guiding the young professionals and the cooperative in the development, implementation and evaluation of the personal development plan of the young professionals. 

In Rwanda, during the first phase of this programme (July-December 2019), Agriterra has created 28 jobs for young professionals where they are gaining work experience in rural farmer-led businesses which are Agriterra cooperative partners. In the second phase, more than 22 new clients of Agriterra are also expected to benefit from this support. Twenty-seven cooperatives have been selected from different clients of Agriterra Rwanda who are working in various value chains (e.g. Potato, Horticulture, maize and sugar cane). 

Based on the needs and the gaps identified in the selected cooperatives, the young professionals that are being recruited, provide services related to fields of interest of cooperatives, e.g. business development, extension services, agronomic services, management and accounting.

To better provide business advisory services related to this project, Agriterra has hired a local consultant who is working in close collaboration with the recruited young professionals to ensure that the services rendered to the selected cooperatives are efficient.

 

 

After hiring the young professionals, cooperatives signed a contract with Agriterra of co-financing the salaries of the recruits as follows; during the last quarter of 2019 75% is being covered by Agriterra and 25% by the cooperatives. In the second phase, the contribution will be equally divided, while at the final stage, Agriterra’s contribution will cover 25% and the cooperative 75%. It is a nice practice to co-finance because it improves the spirit of ownership among the cooperatives. In addition to the salary support, Agriterra is also facilitating the recruited young professionals to have communication and transport allowances worth of 10,000 RWF and 15,000 RWF respectively. Both salary and allowances are being paid every month.

The recruits are not employees of Agriterra, instead are employees of cooperatives but in collaboration with the cooperatives, we make sure that young professionals are adding value in the daily operations of the cooperatives. It is planned that Agriterra will provide coaching and training to young professionals to help them impeccably serve the cooperative.

Grounded in the identified needs of the cooperatives, we have conducted 3-day intensive training on computer literacy to all young professionals who are engaged in the Jobs Jobs Jobs programme, hiring a local company. These young people acquired basic IT skills that will improve their work performance. After the course, participants shared their feedback about the lessons learnt:

 

” Normally, I was too weak to discover a lot of knowledge but after this training, there are many things I acquired. How to use Internet Explorer, word and excel in preparing the report, how to market myself and my employer and many more.”, Albert Mugiraneza.

” Thanks to this training I, now, know how to upload videos, photos and to create a page in Microsoft Word. In Excel l learnt how to add text, to use a formula, to calculate the average, minimum and maximum.”,  Twizamure Nyabigoma Kinigi. 

Also, testimony concerning the first results of the work of young professionals, from chairmanTwizamure Cyeza from Muhanga: "It's only after having these young professionals that our cooperatives managed to have records of everything related to cooperative and this is the first time in the history of the cooperative."

 

Following the training, the cooperative leaders joined their employees in an evaluation workshop to discuss the achievements, challenges and future of their collaboration. We had a very interesting session, in which every cooperative was given time to share with others and present what was the added value of the young professional since s(he) joined the cooperative.

 

The Jobs Jobs Jobs programme is expected to end in December 2020 but our aspiration and ambition are to see these cooperatives can sustainably cover the salaries of their employees. Cooperative leaders are eager to contribute 50% of the recruits’ salary next year and few of them even committed to increasing the salaries of young professionals.

In Rwanda, we are expecting around 21 new jobs to be created and we estimate to secure by the end of 2020 around 50 jobs in total.

 "Youth is the trustee of prosperity"

 

by Jean Marie Ntakirutimana, Agriterra

Jean Marie brought his expertise in sugar sector to Agriterra team Great Lakes (based in Rwanda) as a local consultant and from January 2019 is working as Agriterra business advisor, where he provides business advisory services to sugar cane, potato and coffee cooperatives in achieving their objectives.

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