BY SETHABILE MYENI
MBABANE – Women Farmer Foundation (WFF) has trained a group of youth on tunnel farming through the Innovative Climate Smart Youth Tunnel Production Training Project.
It was gathered that the aim of this initiative is to equip the youth with skills to become young climate resilient business women and men. Director of WFF Sonia Paiva said the future belongs to the youth and there was no reason to wait for distant future to start preparing them to own their tomorrow.
“Our goal is to empower young people by enhancing their skills. There is an increasing youth participation in agriculture hence the need to deepen our youth initiatives, through sharing information and exposing the youth we will be assisting them in achieving their goals,” she said.
She also added that they seek to grant the youth access to the resources they need to start their own agri-businesses. To achieve this, the WFF invited Standard Bank to capacitate the climate smart farmers on how to access their financing options for SMEs.
In fact, the organization also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund (YERF). YERF also joined the Innovative Climate Smart Youth Tunnel Production Training program session on the 24th of October to educate the youth on various options available to them through the financial institution.
Paiva stated that all these efforts are to support youth entrepreneurship and economic activities in all regions of Eswatini.
“These actions are a symbol of our commitment to collaborative efforts towards empowering a new generation of climate adaptive, viable youth-led businesses. The future ahead is bright and we are glad to be part of it,” said Paiva.
