Ms Isatou Sonko, the winner of ‘Best Business Partner of the Year 2019’ Award of GYIN Gambia’s Rural Youth Awards on Wednesday 21st August, 2019 received her supply of Agricultural Inputs, as part of her disbursement of the award cash prize.
The items include vegetable seeds, pesticides, knapsack sprayers and among a host of others.
The Rural Youth Award was held on 27 April, 2019 at Wulli West in the Upper River Region with funding from the Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) and Building Resilience for Food and Nutrition Insecurity in the Sahel (P2RS).
The award cash prize, which amounts to the tune of thirty-five thousand dalasis (D35,000.00), is disbursed in two phases. The first disbursement is D25,000.00 while the second payment of D10,000.00 shall be determine after a successful implementation of the former.
Presenting the items on behalf of the GYIN Gambia Executive Director, the Financial Controller, Mariam Saine, congratulated the winner for being among the 10 selected rural youths to win the award out of 30 shortlisted nominees.
She encouraged her to make best use of the garden input in a bid to serve as a youth champion in her region.
After receiving the items, Ms Sonko, a native of Berending Village, North Bank Region thanked GYIN Gambia for supporting her with such items to expand her garden.
She also expressed gratitude to the development partners for funding the Rural Youth Award, which according to her, is addressing the plight of rural youth.
Before the Rural Youth Award, Ms Sonko was managing 20 beds at the National Agricultural Land and Water Management Development Project (Nema) sponsored garden in her village cultivating onions and okra. She also secured another space of 140 beds in a nearby garden to produce additional crops.
Her main challenge was inadequate water supply in her area, according to her, winning the award will enable her increase her production scale as well as expand her agribusiness venture.