BRINGING RURAL SKILLS TO THE AFRICAN BUSH
COUNTRY: Cote d'Ivoire
THEME: Social
If there is one thing that teenage youngsters around the world have in common, it is a tendency to become disinterested in school. Africa is no exception.
On any day in any community in West Africa, one will be able to find boys, and some girls, in their early teens that are not in school. There may not be many of them, but any student who leaves school early is not making the most of his or her opportunities.
Add to this the tendency for unskilled rural youth to migrate to the cities, and it is not difficult to see that there may be problems ahead. Some village chiefs have realized that this situation needs to be addressed and Mars, working with Winrock International, an educational non-governmental organization (NGO), has joined with a community in the Agboville area of Cote d'Ivoire to make a difference for some of these students.
The village elder in this settlement identified a plot of land where a vocational school could be located. He then approached Winrock, who was already working with the global chocolate industry, and a partnership emerged. The village provided the land and labor to build the school and Mars, along with the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), provided the funding. Winrock provided the know-how to make the project work.
With the endorsement of the Ivorian Ministry of Education, there is now a model school program where teenage boys are enrolled to learn relevant vocational skills, including the art of being a cocoa farmer. This is the school's first academic year, but the partnership is hopeful that a sustainable solution has been found in this community, not only to offer the students further education, but also to help provide a model solution to urban drift.
In addition to this vocational school project, which is under the patronage of the WCF, Mars is working with Winrock to train Ivorian teachers in farming skills for appointments within mainstream schools in the country.
The student teachers will be working on an agricultural curriculum, with a focus on cocoa - the main crop grown for export in Cote d'Ivoire. The study program will take them first to the United States where they will visit the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to meet some of the world's leading agricultural scientists. After the United States visit, they will travel to the Mars Center for Cocoa Science, in the Bahia province of Brazil, to learn practical skills which they will transfer to tomorrow's cocoa farmers on their return to Cote d'Ivoire.
These two initiatives - the vocational school and the training program for student teachers - are being undertaken in an effort to address the difficulties that young people face as they move through the educational system in Cote d'Ivoire. These classes are not an alternative to the mainstream learning that is provided by the national government. Rather, they are intended to supplement existing facilities and to recognize that vocational training has the potential to make a real difference for the youth in cocoa farming communities, offering them the chance to learn relevant life skills and alternative options to unskilled life in the city.
The program has many enthusiastic champions. John Lunde (Mars) described the initiative as "a real demonstration of the commitment that Mars has to contributing to sustainable rural livelihoods", and Vicky Walker (Winrock) said, "Winrock has been working on educational projects in developing countries for years. These developments in Cote d'Ivoire that focus on disengaged youth and offer them alternatives are very encouraging, allowing these youths a better opportunity in life."
In September 2005 the pilot program was completed, and currently, Mars' efforts are focused on expanding this successful program. This unique industry partnership between Mars, the WCF and Winrock International has made a positive difference in many people's lives.
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