Tucked in the island of Rodrigues is small community of young people and mentors. At a glance this passes as a school, home or a community centre. Animal sheds on one corner, beehives, organic gardens on another and structures made of wood and concrete spread across a vast compound. Looking closely though, this institution teeming with young people doing different chores and with youthful life does not look like a school but rather a huge home. Welcome to Centre de Formation Agricole Frere Remi.
A class session at the Centre de Formation Agricole Frere Remi: The centre caters to the youth to develop their academics and vocational skills (Photo: SWITCH Africa Green)
This training centre caters to the youth to develop their academic in mathematics, French and English as well as vocational skills such as livestock rearing, horticulture, floriculture, moasiculture, pyrotechnic and zootechnic. The Centre de Formation Agricole Frere Remi welcomes young people of between 12 and 18 years who have been unable to complete school are not perform well mainly at primary school level. The centre offers both academic and vocational courses to the students in order to help them start up their own micro-business. The teenagers are motivated by the coaches and volunteers to develop their vocational skills in order to start their own micro-business later.
“With the evolution of agriculture, we found that as instructors we hadn’t received enough training and Switch Africa Green programme came to train the instructors, parents and the volunteers,” Verlaine St Pierre, manager of the centre said. “This training is good for the ecology because the more we plant, the more honey we will be able to get, and the more the atmosphere will change. We talk a lot about ecosystems and the economy. The programme has come to help us to really become aware and understand what agriculture is while widening our horizons.”
The SWITCH Africa Green project (A Model for Sustainable Production and Consumption Practices and Eco-entrepreneurship Development) has enabled the centre to be armed with the adequate tools to motivate not only the students of the centre but to benefit the wider society of Rodrigues Island in achieving sustainable development through sustainable consumption and production pattern and practices. The intervention will build on the existing activities and successes of the centre and will also enhance agri-green business development and partnership.
One of the students at the centre watering plants: Training in agriculture has benefitted the entire Rodrigues community (Photo: SWITCH Africa Green)
The programme set out to incorporate green business development in the curriculum and assist business start-ups of students and community in the island. It also aimed to improve service delivery of the centre by optimising the actual resources through studies and reports in the field of water management, waste management, energy management, landscape architecture, topographic studies and statistics.
“Since 2015, when SWITCH Africa Green came on board, we haven’t been buying imported juice; we have been making our own. We are self-sufficient on biogas which we use to cook rice and our produce,” Ms. Verlaine adds. “We have really received incredible training. Moreover, the entire Rodrigues community was able to benefit from the agriculture training.”
One of the centre’s beneficiary is Herman Agathe who is running a successful agribusiness enterprise. This is a testament to the enduring importance that this centre is to the local community, and the immense results of SWITCH Africa Green programme.
“SWITCH Africa Green has equipped me with the skills to conduct my agri-business initiative,” Herman Agathe said. “The concepts I got from the training sessions empowered me to utilize every resource well increasing my flock from four animals to 126. Through Switch Africa Green I can support and provide for my family. For future aspects, I want to lease land to be able to embark on crop production.”
Overall, the programme also set out to train the students, coaches, participants and the community on SCP patterns and practices and to promote inter Mascarene Islands (Rodrigues- Mauritius- Reunion-Seychelles) networking programmes. Networking programmes have been undertaken in Mauritius already.
