Annual Report

2015

My

farming

story

YEAN

Agriculture

Youth

2

The last year was active year for our network as you can see it through this report and I am grateful to the board and beneficiaries who did their best in

the achievement of the following:

Strengthening YEAN Team by voting the committee,

Sharing the information about agriculture via all our networks,

Upgrading our website from web blog to yeanrwanda.org,

The discussion “UBUHINZI BWACU” has shown that young people have a lot to share in agricultural sector and we also managed to get two strong and helpful partners ( YPARD and Agriprofocus).

We look forward to get more partners as we aim to develop an indispensable sector in our country’s development by trying to involve this great part of population, Youth, which is more energetic and innovative. We could not achieve this without the full engagement of each staff member who contributed mentally and financially, the unbelievable participation of our beneficiaries, and mostly the partnership we have with YPARD

and Agriprofocus. We really thank you enormously.

My Sincere Gratitude goes especially to Mr. Etienne NIYIGABA the founder of YEAN who did his best to bring on board a meaningful and strong network and hence I thank the whole YEAN Team for their commitment towards

achievements throughout this period.

We are encouraging each and every one who is not yet involved in YEAN’s activities to join and help by sharing, advising, volunteering and funding different activities to help in the

achievement of our next action plan.

Our success is the community’s success. With the ongoing support of partners and volunteers, YEAN is ready for the

challenges and achievements ahead in 2016.

NDERA Jackson,

Chairperson.

YEAN

Agriculture

Youth

NDERA Jackson

Chairperson

3

Agriculture has been the first economic activity for every Primitive civilization

but still it is driving some countries economy. Rwanda is one of those countries

which economy is driven by agriculture practices as well. The new economic and

poverty reduction strategy, EDPRS II, prioritizes rural development and embraces

the sector as a source of jobs and economic transformation and when we say rural

development we usually mean Agriculture development

According to RPHC4 – Theme 15 – Socio-economic status of youth overall, 63%

of 14-35 year olds are in the labor force and Most employed youth (67%) are

working in agricultural, forestry and fishery occupations and the proportion of

children under 14 years of age is just over 40%.Actually the population structure

remains very young, with 53% of the population aged 19 years or younger

(EICV4 2015).

The poor image of persons involved in agriculture needs to be changed and the

young people are the ideal catalysts for such change given their greater propensity

and willingness to adopt new ideas, concepts and technology which are all critical

to changing the way agriculture is practiced and perceived.

In Rwanda increased productivity in the agricultural sector depends on youth who

comprise 39% of the population (EICV3). The energy that youths possess and the

fact that their number is significant in regard to the country population provides

tremendous opportunities for increasing agricultural productivity.

But many young people don’t see agriculture as an economic activity that can

generate income that can sustain their living conditions and the negative stigma of

pursuing agriculture as a career influences youth to stay away from it. They are

negatively influenced by the image created around agricultural pursuits as a

means of livelihood. They generally gravitate to activities that are popular and

perceived to be socially acceptable.

Owing to the statistics Youth unemployment also shows a close relationship with

the highest level of education attended. Those without any formal education or

only primary level education have relatively low unemployment rates (3%) and

actually many of them are employed in agriculture. With increasing education,

however, young people seem to face difficulties finding employment. The highest

unemployment rates are observed among young university-educated women

(17%) and even those who studied Agriculture are not practicing agriculture as a

way of using their skills. Which means that Agriculture also is among economic

activities that are accepted mostly by youth without any formal education or only

primary level education than those who have a certain level of education even in

Agriculture studies . Most employed youth (67%) are working in agricultural,

forestry and fishery occupations (RPHC4) and this is a sign that agriculture can

host even more.

Even though agriculture is a driving economic activity, it is still struggling as a traditional subsistence agriculture, We, at YEAN we believe the change , we believe that young farmers can drive and lead the change toward a very business oriented agriculture. I have no choice only giving them facts and make it attractive I will see the impact. NIYIGABA Etienne

Founder

Y

NIYIGABA Etienne

Founder

YEAN

Agriculture

Youth

4

1. Introduction to YEAN

YEAN

Agriculture

Youth

.

Youth Engagement in Agriculture Network (YEAN) is a network that spreads agriculture information and facts to the community especially to young people to lead in transforming traditional subsistence agriculture into agribusiness. It was created after realizing that local community needs information to

learn new knowledge and techniques to develop their career. YEAN shares stories from farmers to inspire youth in leading the change in Agriculture and skills development that improves the living

conditions of farmers for sustainable development. YEAN aims at inspiring change for the pursuit of beauty and excellence in young agripreneurs and the community.

Mission

Spread agriculture information and facts to the community to inspire change for the pursuit of beauty and excellence in

young agripreneurs and the community.

Vision

Transforming traditional subsistence agriculture into agribusiness through

youth innovations as skilled and powerful weapon for leading the

change toward sustainable livelihood.

YEAN

Agriculture

Youth

YEAN Team in a meeting with partners (here with YPARD)

5

2. Programs

2.1 Farmers Informed Talk and Share (FITS)

Farmer needs information on production technology that involves cultivating, fertilizing, pest control, weeding and

harvesting, agricultural credit , Market information like: product planning, current prices, forecast of market trends, sales timing,

improved marketing practices, and group marketing.

We also share ongoing opportunity in Agriculture to youth .

All of this information is being disseminated from farmer to farmer and from Experts to Farmers through our Program FITS

that enable farmers to use YEAN Platforms to share information through social networks like

YEAN Website, YEAN Facebook, YEAN Twitter, YEAN Whatsapp, YEAN Instagram YEAN LinkedIn,YEAN Email,....

2.2 Farmer Compete

With the competition, we believe in youth to bring more innovative idea into the farming industry. We organize youth

farming competition in each part and level of the farming activities. This make farmers to know what new techniques are being put in place and help them to learn via peer learning and

field visits.

2.3 Farmer Empowered

This is a program where farmers will get on-field facilitation by Extensionists. It involves in-farm help and study trips . The

program not yet started it be will be introduced this year 2016.

YEAN

Agriculture

Youth

6

3. Partnership

•YPARD is an international movement by Young

Professionals for Young Professionals for Agricultural

Development.

.

•AgriProFocus is an international network with

Dutch roots that promotes and drives farmer entrepreneurship

among farmers and their organisations

YEAN

Agriculture

Youth

5. Achievements

We are appreciating the great job done in this period and we really

recognize the role played by our partners. This is a multi-task great

work that no one can’t accomplish alone without any partnership. By this

report we want to mention YPARD Rwanda as our Main partner

organization and Agriprofocus for your crosscutting role in making YEAN

Activities a success.

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4. Financial Side

• Establishing YEAN board and electing its members

Milestone

• Organizing meeting to establish the structure of YEAN and electing the board

Activities

•YEAN founding members appointed the board to serve for two 2 years

Output

Program 1: Strengthening the capacity of YEAN to deliver

Program 1: Strengthening the capacity of YEAN to deliver

• Establishing YEAN board and electing its members

Milestone

• Organizing meeting to establish the structure of YEAN and electing the board

Activities

•YEAN founding members appointed the board to serve for two 2 years

Output

5. Achievements

YEAN Board

Chairperson : NDERA Jackson,

Vice Chairperson: Nshimiyimana Arcade,

Secretary : Mugiraneza Jean Luc,

Commissioner in Charge of Social Media :Niyigaba Etienne,

Commissioner in Charge of information collection: Jean Luc Mugiraneza,

Advisors: Abed Nego Kezimana, Nyiransabimana Olive ,Shema Fred, Nishimwe

Rosine ,Emmanuel Niyibeshaho, Uwamaliya Antoinette, Philippe Babarinani, Beninka

Gerardine, Murekeyisoni Stella Maris.

Organization or initiative to run needs some resources either from funding

organization or Organisation self Funding . Here we want to mention and

recognize the great commitment made by YEAN Team (Board Members)

for their fundraising that made YEAN activities a success with 3,250,000

Rwf to achieve what is shown in the next part of achievements

YEAN

Agriculture

Youth

Some of YEAN Board

8

• Share Agriculture information and Farming techniques in Both Kinyarwanda and English language though YEAN Website,

Milestone

• Preparing Information to be shared in Both Kinyarwanda and English to ease Rwandan Youth to break language barrier and get out of the box to seize Available Opportunity into Agriculture and Try to change the philosophy toward Agribusiness

Activities

•2000 members on

YEAN Facebook Group,

•YEAN facebook Page Created,

•400 followers on Twitter handle,

•500 followers on LinkedIn page,

•website: 61 articles (blogs) on YEAN website

• Website visited by 11 215 people, from 71

countries but most of them from Rwanda, Norway , East African Countries , European Union, Asia and America.

• 200 farmers joined YEAN Whatsapp

Output

Program 2: Farmer Informed, Talk and Share (FITS)

Farmer sharing maize yield YEAN

Agriculture

Youth

Farmers, Agronomist, Expert in

different domain with the FITS

program they get together through

YEAN Platforms on Social media

and YEAN Website to Discuss a lot

about agriculture , share their in-

farms experience and testimonies

to inspire, get inspired and get in

touch and attract business man

into their farms.

Social media tools are woven into

many young people's day-to-day

lives. Young Farmers are in

conversation and communication

with their peer groups using a wide

variety of different media and

media devices every day.

Young farmers are in the trenches of the

war to achieve food security and are

using ICTs to get information on pest and

disease control, access to new farming

practices and agricultural technologies,

communicating with other farmers and

raising awareness. These farmers are

shaping a fulfilling future for agriculture in

Rwanda

9

Using this fast Growing

Network YEAN is hosting

a weekly Online

discussion where Youth

farmers Participate

massively in the

discussions about a given

topic.

Every Friday from 8 am

till 5 pm the discussion is

open to everyone on

YEAN social Media to give

his/her input as a young

driven by the

commitment of serving

Agriculture.

After discussion the

summary is done and

shared to Website to be

available to everyone. We

want Youth Ideas to be

exposed and taken into

consideration as the

pillars of Agriculture of

tomorrow.

We discuss different topic

like Production, Market,

Agriculture Input, Facts,

Shared success stories.

We never think that we

are not able; we always

believe that the future of

Rwandan lives is in our

Hand as Farmers.

“We never think that we are not able; we always believe that the future of Rwandan lives is in our Hand as Farmers”

Program 3: Online Dicussion " UBUHINZI BWACU"

Screen shoot of the posted summary of the discussion UBUHINZI BWACU

Screen shoot of the YEAN facebook group during discussion

YEAN

Agriculture

Youth

10

YEAN

Agriculture

Youth

“ ”

Some feedback

TUYISABE Philbert

Student at University of

Rwanda CAVM /BUSOGO

YEAN have a very great

meaning to farmers because it

gives all updated information

about farming but most

importantly its gives fact to

Young farmers to be engaged in

Agriculture as a business and

professionally . Personally it

helps me to know farming

techniques of different crops ,

pest and diseases. I can

suggest YEAN to make a

monthly newsletter of New

farming techniques for Farmers

at sector level and organize

Farmer Field School . I can

advise MINAGRI to Partner

with YEAN in Agriculture

Extension Services and in

Preparation of agriculture

seasons.

Didier Muyiramye

Assistant Coordinator

AgriProFocus Rwanda

YEAN is all about Information-

sharing & Knowledge-sharing in

Agriculture , it helps me to get

Information on calls for

proposals, job opportunities, etc.

It also gave us contacts of some

successful young agropreneurs

and helped us promoting the

''Youth in Agribusiness festival''

that was held last year .

If we are thinking of making

Rwanda a middle-income country

in the coming years, let us admit

that Agriculture needs new blood

and fresh ideas. High level

agriculture leaders should find

ways of preventing more youth

(especially from rural areas)

abandoning agriculture in search

of better lives in cities. Good

initiatives and new support

programs have to be created

aiming at attracting & retaining

more youth in the agribusiness

sector!

I can suggest YEAN to Create an

efficient & informative YEAN

website with a directory and

stories on youth in agribusiness

topic and advocate more for the

youth through debates &

dialogues between YEAN

members & Government

institutions.

RUDAHANGARWA Ignace

Agriculture and Natural

Resources Officer

Bugesera District

YEAN Gives to farmers

Updated agriculture

information. It helps me to link

what I learnt at University

with the real Agriculture we

have and to use my skills to

serve agriculture . High level

Agriculture leaders should

consult farmers before making

decisions. We ,farmers have to

take care of agriculture

information being shared and

make sure that we are trying

our best to practice new

farming techniques. If it is

possible YEAN should set up

how to update farmers about

Agro Meteorology, so that we

can be aware of climate change

and weather forecasting to

prevent losses.

Emmanuel Niyibeshaho

Agronomist at Agahozo Shalom

YEAN is a Great Mobilization

tool It gave me advices in

farming technologies . YEAN

should strengthen Field visit of

farmers We can exploit YEAN

to help in the sensitization of

farmers.

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YEAN

Agriculture

Youth

What is YEAN's online story about

Youth Share their daily

Engagement in Agriculture as a

Passion, Vocation and Job

Share diseases and pests

information for online help

Production Improvement

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6. Highlight of some priorities for 2016

YEAN

Agriculture

Youth

Preparing YEAN summit

Attending the FARA Science week

Farmer compete

Engaging more young women to market their potentials

in Agriculture Development

Developing partnership with partners in Youth and

agriculture sectors

……………Enjoy 2016 with YEAN

……………Enjoy how cool is Agriculture

……………Enjoy & share your Farming Story

13

YEAN

Agriculture

Youth

Once you want to meet and contact

YEAN………….

Currently YEAN is being Hosted By YPARD Rwanda In Kicukiro District , Kigali ,

Rwanda

But as you can see , YEAN is more friendly available Online and can be found by

Visiting one of These link

YEAN Website

YEAN Facebook Group

YEAN Facebook Page

YEAN Twitter

YEAN LinkedIn

YEAN Whatsapp

YOUTH ENGAGEMENT IN AGRICULTURE NETWORK

My farming Story

Tel:+250783046315

Email:ryeanetwork@gmail.com

www.yeanrwanda.org

March 2016