DRYDEV Young People Serving Their Community

Capitalisation des activités du programme Drydev 2015/2017 Young people serving DRYDEV their community This fight initiated by young people is happening in the town of Droum (Mirriah Depart- ment) about 40 km from the city of Zinder in Niger. Like the other communes of Niger, young people remain the segment of the population the largest in terms of size but the least involved in development strategies. These young people are the backbone of their community (parents) as well for rain fed fields, market gardening, and livestock breeding for labor intensive work or HIMO (State and NGOs). These young people find it difficult to integrate the current system hijacked by «the elder- ly» and are often solicited only for the work of HIMO under cover of their parents. They are very seldom called upon in strategic meetings; it is rare or impossible to see young people among the key informant committees that projects put in place. These facts are confirmed by all the studies, evaluations and other joint monitoring mis- sions that CARE Niger had to carry out in the commune. It is after this that the idea of creating a space to allow young girls and boys to meet and exchange in order to identify sustainable solutions that will allow them to have access to any kind of opportunity that offers to their municipality. After several inter-village meetings, the young people decided together with the rest of the community to join massively the innovation platform of the commune of Droum. It was a first gateway that allowed young people to express themselves, to contribute to the production of ideas and to take key roles. 1 According to the young people, their ambition is clear and everyone dreams of having cer- tain autonomy both financially and socially. By financial autonomy, young people are com- mitted to identifying all windows of opportunity and to exploit them sustainably. Young people mean by their social autonomy their involvement in strategic meetings (with NGOs, State, Private Sector, City Hall, and Village Chief) at the level of their community and their right to speak. Mr. Boulalé said during a meeting held at the Droum town hall between the young people, the town hall and the DryDev program: «We young people, we want to succeed without going through 36,000 roads, we will organize to make this wish a success, for example if a young person wants to have a piece of land for market gardening we will take care of it, the result would be faster, more sincere without any cost than if it is a project that pleads for us. In short we can raise ourselves several obstacles without waiting for someone from outside to do it very badly at times for us.» These young people with very original ideas, sincere, have expressed the wish to the mayor, the program DryDev and the Platform of Innovation to help them better organize. To date, an office had been offered by the town hall for their exchange meeting. The CARE DryDev program and the NGO Mercy Corps have put at their disposal a variety of materials, including smartphones to film and meet them and share with friends on What- sApp from other villages, GPS to easily measure areas and other GPS points, an overhead projector and a generator were made available to make their «Fada» more alive and struc- tured. This «Fada» is now baptized as a social innovation laboratory of Droum youth. These girls and boys have drawn their own theory of change that is simple: «If we achieve integrity, respect and innovation at our age and engage socially and econo- mically, then we can live healthy and productive lives.» Since, these young people meet, talk through WhatsApp to look for the best possible ways to act. 2 A leadership group of 10 young people has been appointed by the youth to lead the laboratory, identify the actors (private sectors, NGOs, State, etc.) and convene meetings that require the presence of other young people. Young people commit themselves to make their own laboratory capable of mobilizing own funds, to do this all the activities that will be set up for the benefit of young people will generate assets in the laboratory in the form of return on investment or rebates depending on the type of activity or financing. For now, two axes have been identified and activities have started : Axis1: Wealth creation focused on safe and context-sensitive assets z The leaders of the laboratory have set themselves the goal of organizing young girls and boys around income-generating activities that they already know or that their parents lead but with more innovation (MMD, market gardening, sale of non-agricul- tural products, etc.) z The leaders of the laboratory have set up a technical team of young people able to manipulate ICT data collection tools such as ODK and GPS for the moment. This team was set up to allow the lab to have more reliable data in a number of sectors but also to provide services to NGOs or private sectors wishing to obtain quality data at low cost. Axe 2 : Partnership and networking Once the cimmitment is internalized, trust between parents, elected officials and youth is restored or consolidated, young people will seek partners for frank and win-win collabora- tion. These partners may be private sector, state programs or NGOs. 3 Towards financial autonomy for young GIRLS AND BOYS This is possible through the development of several initiatives including the establishment of youth MMD groups. The initiative for setting up MMDs for young boys and girls started with Village Agents (VA) in the commune until the 10 young people identified from the laboratory have completed their trainings and obtain the certificate as VA certified by the lab. Photo 3 and 4 : Young girls and boys from the village of Gogo of the Droum commune are sensitized by experienced Village Agents solicited by the youth laboratory. There are now 5 VSLA groups of young people, including 3 in GOGO (1 for boys and 2 for girls) and 2 in Droum (1 for boys and 1 for girls). This is a first in the commune of Droum. This dynamic will be scaled by the young people from the laboratory at village level. This struc- turing of young people around VSLA groups would help develop the economy of the municipality through the development of IGAs, the facilitation of access to inputs for young market gardeners and the collective and participative management of development problems. Capitalisation des activités du programme Drydev 2015/2017 4.

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