GYIN Gambia Rural Youth Awards set for June

The Rural Youth Awards 2023 is part of GYIN Gambia’s eight-month-long project “Foster Agribusiness and Entrepreneurship Opportunities for Returnees and Host Communities in Rural Areas” funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaftfür Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.

The Rural Youth Awards 2023 will recognize and celebrate 10 best performing returnees, women and youth start-up businesses. They will be provided with an in-kind support worth Euros 1, 000 for each award winner to enhance their businesses. 

The Rural Youth Award has awarded 40 Winners and Runners-Up since the inception of the rural youth award in 2017.

The idea of the First Ever Rural Youth Award in 2017 stemmed from recommendations from that National Youth Summer Camp held in Jenoi, Lower River Region of The Gambia. One of the 11-point recommendations was to organise a Rural Youth Awards- providing mentorship and entrepreneurship trainings while celebrating youth in Entrepreneurship, Agribusiness and Agro-marketing. Previous award winners were supported with in-kind award prizes.

These winners have established their own businesses while others expanded their businesses. Since the first wardorganised in 2017, award winners are into business and are creating jobs for others.

Mamadou Edrisa Njie, the Executive Director of GYIN Gambia speaking to members of the media at a press conference held at his office on Wednesday said GYIN Gambia through the Rural Youth Award has created over 300 jobs directly and indirectly.

He pointed out that Gambian farmers in the horticultural sector especially in rural areas usually struggle to buy fertilizers due to their financial incapability as well as face challenges of market competition.

He added that access to credit facility for expansion is another challenge that most farmers face, noting that most farmers in the country are willing to expand their agribusiness in order to generate more income and create job opportunities for the youth folks, but hardly access funds from government agencies due to the cumbersome prerequisites that are in place for accessing those funds.

However, he said through the award, GYIN Gambia Chapter will address these challenges by promoting agribusiness and creating income and employment opportunities for returnees, women and youth in host communities and thereby foster self-employment through agribusiness entrepreneurship skill development and in-kind support thus increasing employability of the beneficiaries.

He added that The Gambia has recently seen significant increase in the number of Business Support Organisations (BSOs) to enhance the development of the entrepreneurship ecosystem. However, he said majority of these BSOs are in the urban area with limited presence in rural areas.

Therefore, he said organising an award for rural young people will significantly contribute in jobs creation.

Sarjo Jarju, the Chairperson for the Rural Youth Award said they will launch a call for application for the 175 selected beneficiaries of the project who were trained on packaging and labeling and a jury will select 30 nominees and finally the 10 award winners.

He added that they will profile the nominees and award winners before finally awarding winners.

Mr. Jarju thanked his committee members for their support and dedication in ensuring the award is a success.

The Global Youth Innovation Network Gambia Chapter (GYIN Gambia Chapter) is a National Youth Organization that was formed in 2011 and officially registered on 4th June 2012 and registered with the Attorney General’s Chambers at the Ministry of Justice. The organisation was also registered with the National Youth Council (NYC) on 21st May 2015 to operate as a National Youth Organisation. It has a membership of over one thousand (1000) young people across the country. The organisation has regional chapters in all the six agricultural regions of the country.