RCE Buea-2014

rce_proj_title_2013
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1. Project Title: 
Hope From the Farm
2. Thematic area/s addressed by the project
3. Project partner contact information : 
Organization: 
Green Cameroon
Role: 
Project leader
Main Contact: 
info@greencameroon.org
5. Project description
Provide a short description of the project including strategies, regional challenges, aims and specific project activities.: 

Hope from the Farm is a project that aims at using agriculture as a means of fighting the high level of youth unemployment, high crime rates, high dependency ratio and rural exodus that is taking place in communities of the Mount Cameroon Forest Region.


The project will encourage youths to get involved in agricultural activities and show them that farming can be a major source of income if practiced and embraced in a serious and systematic way. Through the project, Some 100 youths from 10 village communities of the Mount Cameroon forest region will be supported in setting up farms of some highly demanded local economic crops such as Plantains, Cassava and Yams.


Support through this project will come in forms of training, seed and equipment. Youths who are willing to embrace agriculture as their main source of livelihood will be identified, recruited trained on economic and sustainable farming methods and upon completion of the training, they will be expected to allocate a piece of land not less than one hectare where they will cultivate any of the chosen three crops in large scale. Considering the high demand for these crops it is a known fact that a hectare plantation of any of them would be enough to provide for the immediate family needs of these youths with prospects of savings and expansion.


The project goals are to;


- Fight Youth unemployment in the Mount Cameroon Forest Region

- Encourage the involvement of youths in agricultural activities

- Contribute to reducing the high dependency ratio observed in the region

- Alleviate poverty from the region through the initiation of self employment

- Increase food production levels and agricultural yields in the region


The project targets unemployed youths of ages 18 to 30 of both sexes living in the communities of the Mount Cameroon Forest Region.


The project contributes to reducing poverty through the provision of jobs and a steady means of livelihood. The families of the beneficiary youths will benefit from revenue raised from crop sales.


To ensure sustainability, each beneficiary before the training and support will sign a legally binding document that compels them to sponsor the training of one other beneficiary one year after the start of their farm. In this way, the project will just be funded once and the payback from the beneficiaries will enable more community members to benefit. Village management committees will be setup under the control of the chiefs and they will take over the management after one year of application with continues supervision from Green Cameroon which is the implementation organization.

Envisaged Activities


- Meet the People/Sensitization tours, Village community meetings with Chiefs

- Recruitment of beneficiaries, identification and selection of trainers

- Training of Beneficiaries

- Acquisition of seeds and farming equipment

- Identification, inspection and validation of beneficiaries Soil land

- Distribution of Seeds and equipments to beneficiaries

- Planting of support seeds, supervision and follow up

- Supervision of first harvest and evaluation of yields and

- Reporting

- End of Project.


Expected Results:


- Train 100 youths of the Mount Cameroon Forest Region on Sustainable farming methods and Seed propagation of Plantain, Cassava and Yams

- Support 200 youths of the Mount Cameroon Forest Region With seeds to start forms of at least half hectare each.

- Support 200 youths of the Mount Cameroon Forest Region with basic Soiling equipments like cutlasses, hoes, axes, diggers, wheel barrows and watering cans.

- Getting at least 200 families involved in the production of highly demanded economic Soil products in this region


6. Project status
Description: 
The Pilot phase of this project is actually completed. We are currently working on developing a second phase which will see more youths involved and benefiting. A total of 12 youths benefited from this first phase, they were given their seeds and equipments, their farms have been established and several visits have been made to the farms to see how the crops are doing and the results so far have been satisfactory.
8. Tagging
Region: 
Africa and Middle East