PROJECT YVETA
INTEGRATING FORMAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION.
As Africa Leads’ first initiative, Project YVETA is a vocational program that integrates skills training in agriculture and agro-entrepreneurship with traditional academic schooling in the subjects of math, language comprehension, and agricultural sciences.
The program targets over 15 villages in the region of Thies, Senegal where there is a high number of adolescents who currently do not attend school due to a variety of difficult circumstances.
The Model
With income generated through our 12 acres farm and our poultry production, we hope to sustain the program’s operations and its 3 main activities of focus:
A quality formal education in the traditional subjects of math, language comprehension and agricultural sciences.
Our curriculum is designed to help the students develop their literacy, numeracy and language skills. The majority our students have already had some exposure to a formal education but for many reasons could not continue.
FORMAL EDUCATION
A quality vocational education in agriculture with a more emphatic focus on two aspects: Agriculture and poultry farming.
The integration of a variety of nutrient-rich fruits, vegetables is providing our students with a hands on experience in crop diversification, a concept meant to increase crop portfolio so that as future agricultural entrepreneurs, our students are not dependent on a single cash- crops to generate their income.
EDUCATION IN AGRICULTURE
POULTRY FARMING
Poultry farming is increasingly becoming lucrative worldwide, with demand for eggs and chicken meat on the upward trend. The integration of small animal husbandry into our curriculum is widening our students’ perspective on what it means to farm by giving them an opportunity to engage with a different aspect of agriculture.
Empowering a new generation of entrepreneurs in the agro-business sector.
Through opportunities and mentors in the field, our students are learning what it means to build capacity for management, decision-making, communication, and leadership, which are all central to a quality education.
Through opportunities arranged by the school, our students are participating mentorship programs where they are linked to firms, industries and individuals who partake in the management, finance, and marketing aspects of farming; skills useful in any small business enterprise.
EMPOWERMENT
CREATING REWARDING FUTURES
The program complements Senegal’s national development strategies
by responding to skill gaps in the economy, particularly in technical and vocational fields.
The goals of our program are aligned with the current efforts of the Senegalese government to reduce the rural-urban migration of youth and to cultivate their interest in agriculture by showing them how diverse and rewarding working within this particular sector can be.