DOROTHÉE, 14 YEARS
Student at the Dizangué agricultural training center in Cameroon.
Agricultural training programs.
In order to break the cycle of instability in rural environments, the IECD and its partners have implemented, in Cameroon (since 1992) and in Ivory Coast (since 1998), a network of dual-apprenticeship training centers in agriculture and animal breeding professions. The training allows young people from 13 to 25 years to acquire the skills needed to start their professional activity.
“The thing that interests me here at the agricultural training center is that we learn how to grow things, work the fields, and breed animals. We learn how to study in class. Here we are like one big family: we work together and I like that.
I spend two weeks at the school and two weeks at work. In my small field, I have planted Ndjango, maize, waterlif, and black nightshade. It earns me a great deal of money. Black nightshade and waterlif is for food. I take some of it home. But out of everything that I have learned at the FFS, it is maize that interests me the most. When you grow maize, you can sell it to animal breeders for feed. Other people want fresh corn to eat or grill before selling it.
If I had one piece of advice to give to my friends, it would be that even if you don’t live with your parents, or if you don’t know where they are, it doesn’t matter what you go through, you always have to be level-headed and never give up: you have to believe in yourself!”
