After winning the GYIN Gambia Rural Youth Awards 2019, the ten (10) awardees along with the GYIN Gambia Executive Director, Mamadou Edrisa Njie, Chairperson Rural Youth Awards 2019 National Organsing Committee. Mr. Sarjo Jarju and GYIN Gambia Head of Programmes, Mrs. Jainaba Manjang on 7th May, 2019 paid a courtesy visit to the Project Director of the Building Resilience Against Food and Nutrition Insecurity in the Sahel (P2RS) Mr Momodou L. Gassama at his office in Abuko.
The purpose of the visit was to seek his blessings and at the same time thank him for supporting the Rural Youth Awards prizes and other numerous gestures GYIN Gambia has enjoyed from his project.
The awards prizes are to the tune of D35,000.00 for each awardee to scale up their businesses.
The Rural Youth Awards 2019, which was partly funded by the P2RS Project and the Youth Empowerment Project (YEP), was held on 27th April, 2019 at the Wuli and Sandu Development Agency (WASDA) in Wuli West, Upper River Region.
Introducing the awardees to the P2RS Director, Mamadou Edrisa Njie, GYIN Gambia Executive Director thanked the P2RS Project Director, Mr. Momodou L. Gassama and his staff for the partnership describing it as “fruitful’ and assured P2RS team that GYIN Gambia will continue supporting rural youths.
The awardees, Njie stated will be enrolled in six months Youth Mentorship Programme to have a better understanding of enterprise management.
Njie stated that GYIN Gambia will be conducting quarterly monitoring and evaluations to access the performance(s) of the winners stating that his office will closely work with P2RS Monitoring and Evaluation Office.
Giving his words of wisdom, the P2RS Director, Mr Momodou L. Gassama said P2RS has been mandated by the AfDB to roll out its strategy of creating Youth Employment in the Sahel and has, therefore, lays emphasis on expanding economic opportunities for women and youths.
This, he explained, has been done over the years with various stakeholders and in particular through GYIN Gambia.
The aims of P2RS is to increase the profitable trade in agricultural produce, produced by small-scale farmers by broadening and deepening local and national markets in terms of volume, quality and value addition.
According to him, P2RS’s Entrepreneurship Program continues to invest in entrepreneurship enablers for young people of this country, through competitive assessment, and to build the capacity of the enablers to meet their needs at different stages of growth. This, he highlighted, includes a greater emphasis on mentoring, coaching, the provision of ‘seed’ money and Cash Awards to implement their individual Business Plans in order to develop and transform Gambia’s Agricultural sector as a Business.
Mr Gassama reiterated his office’s commitment to supporting Entrepreneurship and Rural Youth Awards through GYIN with both financial and coordinating support.
“Our Partnership with GYIN Gambia has therefore evolved in heaps and bounds since 2014 as they bring rural youths to the fore of agricultural development,” he said.
Also speaking on the occasion, the P2RS Business Development Officer, Mr Banky Njie said the AfDB’s Jobs for Youth in Africa Strategy ensures youth play a key role in driving Africa’s inclusive growth and transformation agenda forward.
He added that the Bank, GoTG, and P2RS are committed to an ecosystem approach – with a suite of policy, programming, investment, and knowledge interventions that tackle youth unemployment from a variety of different angles. He noted that this unique position aims to address the challenge of this scale, given its convening power, knowledge of the continent, and strong public-private partnerships.
Njie used the occasion to wish the awardees every success in their endeavors’ to utilize their Award Money wisely for the sole benefit of their businesses.
Speaking on “behalf of the awardees, Marie Madeline Mendy, Winner “Best Packaged and Labelled Products of Agro-Products of the Year 2019” from Farato Village, West Coast Region (WCR) thanked the P2RS project for supporting the award cash prizes. On behalf of her colleagues, she extended sincere appreciations to GYIN Gambia for coming with the idea of the Rural Youth Awards saying that this is the best way to celebrate the achievements and successes of rural young people.