Posted on September, 25, 2019 at 09:44 am
ALL district councils in the country have been ordered to set aside land meant to accommodate youth to engage in agriculture and fisheries activities in order to make the group productive.
Deputy Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office, Antony Mavunde who visited various youth development projects in Manyara and Dodoma regions under the “Oye Youth Empowerment Project,” during the weekend said, the SNV implemented and Swiss Development Agency financed projects have shown that youth have massive potential to be productive.
Mavunde said the Fifth Phase Government through the Ministry of Agriculture and the Prime Minister’s Office have come up with a specific strategy to engage young people engage in agriculture by training and sensitizing them to acquire skills and change their attitudes towards agriculture.
“The first step we have taken is to partner with various institutions including Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) whose experts are coming to the project to change the attitude of young people and make them believe that agriculture is the key to their economic growth,” he said.
“In the next step, we have massively invested through the Prime Minister's Office and have started a strategy to build capacity of 100 young people across the country, of which 80 will be trained to cultivate vegetable through green house technologies,” the Deputy Minister stated.
Briefing the Deputy Minister, OYE Program Manger, Jean Muthamia-Mwenda said that soon after the project commenced, they have seen young people change their lives by engaging in agricultural activities.
“Youth are now generating income, saving and managing themselves as being advocated by the government under President John Magufuli,” Mwenda said while commending Mavunde for encouraging youth to make money from farming.
OYE Project’s consultant, Faustine Msangila said so far, the project has helped over 8,000 youths against a initial target of 6,500 in the first phase which started in 2016 in Shinyanga, Manyara, Singida Tabora, Dodoma and Morogoro regions.
“We are planning to start the second phase of the project in collaboration with the government by targeting over 20,000 youth in 15 regions of the country,” Msangila said backed by SNV’s Monitoring and Evaluation consultant, Rashid Byarushengo who said that they have been training young people on how to mechanise in agriculture.
One of the beneficiary youth from Dareda village in Manyara region, Marcel Damas and Mathias Jumbe, said despite the challenges, they are doing much better under the project.
Source: IPP Media