From 21st to 22nd July 2014, held at Yaoundé the Cameroon
National Inception Workshop of the CORY (Creating Opportunities for Rural Youth)
project. YPARD Cameroon
was invited to provide inputs to the Cameroon design of the project and also as
a potential national implementing partner. On the behalf of the coordination
team, the Centre region representative, Gwladys Mabah, took part to the
workshop.
What is CORY?
CORY is a
new initiative which aims to help young men and a woman living in rural areas
to become a good agroentrepreneur.CORY vision is to create entrepreneurship
opportunities for rural youth in West and Central Africa including Gambia,
Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon. In Cameroon, the implementing zones are Centre and
North-West regions.
From 2014 to
2017, the project objectives are to :
- Train
43,200 rural youths (15-35 years old) in entrepreneurship in agricultural and
non agricultural fields; Create
480 businesses in rural areas owned and managed by youths; Train
2,400 mentors; Create a "Young Entrepreneurs Without Borders" (YEWB) network, Launch
the CORY website (www.coryproject.org)
Project Components
1. Knowledge
management and survey of business development services
The first component is to identify the gaps and learn
from failures and successes of past and current business development services
in order to avoid replication but rather fit in missing areas and thereby
adding value.
2. Rural entrepreneurial training, mentorship, and
business development services
The second component is to foster experimental
training by bringing in the REVCEL (Rural Entrepreneurial Venture Creation and
Experience Learning) training for non agricultural business and the SELF
(Songhai Entrepreneur and Leadership Fellowship) training for agricultural
business and by bringing in mentors to follow-up and coach young entrepreneurs.
3. Financing by micro-credit lending
The third component is not to give loans to youths for
their businesses but rather to mitigate the risks of non repayment by training
and coaching the youths, negotiating low interest rate with financial
institutions and taking 20% of the risk on the loans obtained by the youths.
CORY Entrepreneur Ecosystem Snapshot and Rural Youth Surveys
The surveys forms were
presented by the project
coordinator, especially what was expected from the
participants.
For the CORY
entrepreneur ecosystem snapshot survey, they were assigned to evaluate the current
state of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Cameroun, and to suggest actions
having priority.. They were also assigned to identify and name organizations,
programs, projects involved in business
development services for youths in Cameroon.
For the CORY rural
youth survey, they were assigned to evaluate the knowledge, skills and features
of rural youths and to suggest the selection criteria of youths for the CORY
project.
Partnership with CORY
There are 3 types of partnership with CORY: mentor, service provider and national
implementing partner (NPI).
A mentor is an individual who offers expertise in one
or many services provided by CORY.
A service provider is an organization or an enterprise
which offers services for CORY activities. The difference with a implementation
partner is that while the relationship between a service provider and CORY is a
business one, a NIP is a member of the CORY implementation team, thus it is
part of the project. It can provide expertise in one or many components of the
project.
Individuals and Organizations profile
forms were provided to workshop participants, so that they can fill them if
they want to be a partner to the project and give them back to CORY management
team for further discussion.
What are we done during this workshop as Young professionals?
We moderated and reported what was done in
one the discussion groups on CORY Entrepreneur Ecosystem Snapshot and Rural
Youth Surveys.
We filled in the CORY Entrepreneur
Ecosystem Snapshot and Rural Youth Surveys forms. Based on Ypardians potential
at country level, we thought that it is the occasion for our member to develop
their various skills in field study and data analysis
There was a discussion on the level of education
(secondary or equivalent) as selection criteria of rural youths for the CORY
project. We suggested that this should apply only for the selection of the
first youths who will be trained and then train and coach others youths. For
the others, only reading and writing skills in one of the official or popular
local languages should be required. So YPARD as youth’s platform must be
involved in the selection process of the beneficiaries.
In the annual activity plan submitted to
the participants, Country orientation and selection of young entrepreneurs for
the first round of training are planned simultaneously. We suggested that the
selection of youths for the first training starts after the country orientation
since this orientation aims to fit in the CORY project with the Cameroon
context and one of the outcomes of this activity is adapted selection criteria.
We also nominated YPARD
Cameroon as a national implementing partner. YPARD Cameroon can be a partner
for the implementation of the CORY component 1 and 2 (Knowledge
management and survey of business development services, Rural entrepreneurial
training, mentorship, and business development services) in Cameroon Centre and
North West regions. The implication of YPARD to these two components can be the
occasion to be assured that Youth voice is really taking into consideration
during the project implementation. At this level can better carry out youth
advocacy during monitory and evaluation of CORY at national level.
