#GEW WINNER DESMOND
Agrigold — growing opportunities for youth in Ghana
Most youth in the rural areas of Ghana are unable to continue their education past the junior-high level. This fact is attributed mostly to financial difficulties which, unfortunately, tends to then prevent those who drop out of school from securing stable employment. These youth then end up working and, in many cases, living in the streets. In an effort to stop this damaging cycle I established Arigold, an initiative that facilitates co-operative learning groups for youth to get hands-on experience while generating income, allowing them to return to school.
I came up with this idea upon realizing that this could really help some youth return to school and get them off the street. By inspiring them and encouraging them, we are also helping to decrease their use of damaging vices including stealing to support themselves. We share with them inspiring stories from successful people in the agricultural fields, help them access resources to continue learning while out of school, and form three-to-five member co-operative farming groups among them so they can get some hands-on experience.
Agrigold uses readily available resources in the community like local libraries and youth centres to help youth research and learn, and we hope to soon obtain warehouse space to establish a permanent, one-stop-shop resource for the youth. This warehouse will also act as space for youth to produce goods from raw materials obtained from partnering local farmers and give them hands-on experience.
Part two of our goal is to addresses the difficulties Ghanian farmers have in finding stable markets for their crops and products. While this aspect of our initiative has proven a little more difficult, I know that it’s a goal we will eventually achieve. The proof is in some of the successes we’ve seen already; including partnerships with two local farmers, Justice and Emmanuel.
With Agrigold’s help, Justice has been able to expand his animal farm and sell the animals he raises to community members in and outside the town (especially during festive seasons from which he is able to an extra income). Justice is now looking forward to expanding and partnering with Agrigold even further so that he can help educate participating youth on how to work with and raise animals on farms.
Emmanuel is a corporate farming partner of Agrigold, and with help from the program has furthered his education and been provided with some basic farming needs he hadn’t access to prior to their partnership. Emmanuel is one of many corporate farmers currently working with Agrigold, who, thanks to Desmond and the program, now possess an average of 3 acres of maize on their land.
It’s important to me that our work with youth helps them to be able to earn a living, reduce their dependency on their parents, most of whom are older in age, and help some be able to continue their education. It makes me very happy to see youth be able to return to school thanks to the income they’ve secured from the farming activities they take on through Agrigold.
