While we know that agriculture has a high employment potential for youth and can help them generate wealth, young people are not willing to remain in the sector. They are not always able to see potential opportunities, and often lack the access to business mentorship programs with experienced and skilled businesspeople that would equip them to start, manage and sustain an agribusiness. 

That is why YALTA developed a one-year mentorship programme, aimed at giving individual young agripreneurs support on topics of agroecology, to enhance their business growth and provide social, economic and environmental benefits. The programme sought to give youth skills and techniques for improved agroecological business management, practical insights on developing business plans and insights into promoting their agroecological services and products to potential investors and consumers. 

Take Sylvine, a young agroforestry business owner in Rwanda’s Eastern Province. Her mentor trained her on business planning, financial record keeping, marketing strategies, contract negotiation, and product branding. Sylvine says, “Through the programme, I've started increasing production and initiating new market opportunities". This includes a direct investment from her mentor in her company, towards scaling production. 

Young entrepreneurs could apply for this mentorship by submitting an application form. Clusters of 8 mentees were formed, and each  assigned a mentor with the right area of expertise and in the right location. Then each group had meetings on and offline. Mentors also connected during two regional learning-and-exchange brainstorming sessions specific to their role. 

Once the mentorship year was over, young entrepreneurs shared their experience and engaged in peer-to-peer learning during a two-day business learning exchange event. They also shared innovative agroecology and climate-sensitive business approaches, strategies and their own experience, as well as learnt more about marketing and creating effective business pitches for investors and donors. 

The mentorship programme brought together more than 125 mentees, young men and women between 18 and 35 years old, from rural and urban settings in four different countries, who are involved in production, value addition, agro-input supply and agro-processing and agricultural services. 

After the YALTA initiative formally closed, it developed a story map of agroecology businesses and activities. This web-based application highlights youth-owned agroecological best practices in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda.

Videos created for the storymap

Videos created for the storymap:

While we know that agriculture has a high employment potential for youth and can help them generate wealth, young people are not willing to remain in the sector. They are not always able to see potential opportunities, and often lack the access to business mentorship programs with experienced and skilled businesspeople that would equip them to start, manage and sustain an agribusiness. 

That is why YALTA developed a one-year mentorship programme, aimed at giving individual young agripreneurs support on topics of agroecology, to enhance their business growth and provide social, economic and environmental benefits. The programme sought to give youth skills and techniques for improved agroecological business management, practical insights on developing business plans and insights into promoting their agroecological services and products to potential investors and consumers. 

Take Sylvine, a young agroforestry business owner in Rwanda’s Eastern Province. Her mentor trained her on business planning, financial record keeping, marketing strategies, contract negotiation, and product branding. Sylvine says, “Through the programme, I've started increasing production and initiating new market opportunities". This includes a direct investment from her mentor in her company, towards scaling production. 

Young entrepreneurs could apply for this mentorship by submitting an application form. Clusters of 8 mentees were formed, and each  assigned a mentor with the right area of expertise and in the right location. Then each group had meetings on and offline. Mentors also connected during two regional learning-and-exchange brainstorming sessions specific to their role. 

Once the mentorship year was over, young entrepreneurs shared their experience and engaged in peer-to-peer learning during a two-day business learning exchange event. They also shared innovative agroecology and climate-sensitive business approaches, strategies and their own experience, as well as learnt more about marketing and creating effective business pitches for investors and donors. 

The mentorship programme brought together more than 125 mentees, young men and women between 18 and 35 years old, from rural and urban settings in four different countries, who are involved in production, value addition, agro-input supply and agro-processing and agricultural services. 

After the YALTA initiative formally closed, it developed a story map of agroecology businesses and activities. This web-based application highlights youth-owned agroecological best practices in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda.

Videos created for the storymap