SKILLS TRAINING FOR VULNERABLE YOUNG PEOPLE
Skills Training Centre
The Redemptorists are committed to helping young people build futures of hope. The Redemptorists have formed a partnership with an organisation called Young Africa who are providing important skills training for employment for the young people of the Beira region of Mozambque. The Redemptorists are investing in the construction of a Skills Training Centre at Dondo, Beira, in the Sofala Province of Mozambique. The aim of the centre is to promote practical skills training and learning in the agricultural sector amongst vulnerable young people and experienced farmers to provide greater employment opportunities locally, enhance food security of vulnerable communities and promote economic activity in the agricultural sector in Beira-Dondo.
Project Objectives for 2012
The Redemptorists are committed to supporting:
- The construction of a 6 room teaching block to be used as an agricultural skills training centre for young people in Beira-Dondo, plus the provision of furniture;
- The development of a vegetable garden including construction of a well, installation of a pump, development of a simple irrigation system and construction of simple greenhouses;
- The personnel costs of a Training Instructor and Farm Assistant;
The building will be used to provide 3-6 month practical and affordable accredited skills training programmes in numerous disciplines to young people ( courses will be accredited by the INEFP) the national vocational training authority). It will have a maximum capacity of 175 students. The building will also be used to hold monthly up-skilling programmes for 50 local farmers. In the short term, the building will act as a temporary office and administration centre until a designated administration building is constructed.The vegetable garden will support the practical courses and develop the income generation potential of the project in the short term.
Focused on Agriculture
The project is focused on the agriculture sector and aims to provide practical skills training, employment to vulnerable young people and support to local farming communities through the development of the Young Africa Afri Tech centre on a 200 hectare site on the outskirts of the town of Dondo (population 77000).
During the 1980s and 1990s Mozambique’s agricultural sector was barley functional due to a combination of manmade and natural causes including civil war, drought and floods. Since independence, there has been a serious decline in agricultural production attributed to the collapse of rural transport and marketing systems when Portuguese farmers and traders left the country. Subsistence agriculture continues to employ the vast majority of the country’ work force and smallholder agriculture productivity and productive growth is weak. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, only 12% of the 36 million hectares of potential farmland in Mozambique is under cultivation Due to low agricultural output, Mozambique is vulnerable to the rising cost of food, especially wheat, on the on the international markets. Recent riots sparked by higher food prices led to the death of 13 people in the capital Maputo.
The Project Objectives:
- Educate 500 young people a year, to be sufficiently skilled to become (self) employed farmers through an increasingly self-reliant agricultural vocational training centre.
- Contribute to employment creation, food security and promote economic activity in the agricultural sector;
- Involve the private sector and professionals of the local community to participate in the education of its own people
- Stimulate young people to positively contribute to their country’s economy through their newly acquired skills (including making proper choices in regard to HIV/AIDs)
- Support local farming community through the infrastructure of Agri-Tech especially in the marketing of their products;
- Inspire farmers to apply innovative farming methods to improve productivity and ecological sustainability through collaboration with Agricultural Universities from overseas.
Investment
The Redemptorists in partnership with SERVE and Misean Cara and Electric Aid and the Irish Dairy Board are investing €119,000 in this project.
