Project Overview
Majority of the footballers in Kenya are amateurs or semi-professionals. They depend on training and match allowances to earn a living. Unfortunately, the income is not enough to meet and sustain the needs of the footballers all year.
The current pandemic has further exposed the frailties of the sports sector in Kenya. With the Covid-19 epidemic, the players have no source of income since there are no club activities due to the implementation of the health safety measures that enforce social distancing.
It is in this view that we propose to start the Agriventure Clubs project to provide an alternative source of revenue for the youth in football. The project will seek to identify young people interested in agricultural activities and encourage them to form Agriventure Clubs. The clubs will be peer to peer “learn by doing” forums where the youths will engage in urban farming, managed farm services or value addition. Members will be involved in urban agriculture and provided with the standard starter kit to support them during and after the Covid-19 lockdown period.
Business Need
The Ministry of Agriculture estimates the average age of a farmer in Kenya as 60 years. There is, therefore, a need for Kenyan youths to gain the capacity to actively participate in agricultural value chain activities for positive youth development while achieving food security for the nation.
The Agriventure Club members will be motivated and empowered to participate in agricultural activities across the value chain with the same spirit of teamwork exhibited in their football games. The project also aims to take advantage of the self-organising nature of sports and ubiquity of football, specifically, to achieve its objective.
Project Objectives
- Encourage youth to embrace agricultural ventures as a business.
- Increase youth engagement in agriculture through vocational skills development.
- Support youth business incubation and entrepreneurship.
Scope of Project
To achieve the objectives, the project team will reach out to the youths in football, identify and select the agricultural activity they would like to get involved in and support them to roll out. Teams and or individuals with innovative businesses ideas will be identified within the clubs and helped to become full entrepreneurs.
The tasks in the project will include creating Agriventure Clubs whose members will be involved in agricultural activities. The members will be encouraged to practice agriculture in their home counties as a club where they will do managed services and take over from the ageing farmers gradually.
Further, the project aims to create a platform to influence more peers into embracing agricultural value chain activities utilising the network effect evident in football circles.
Sustainability
This project aims to harness the convening power of football (teams) to spur economic activity allowing participants to generate revenue. Our focus will, therefore, be on SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Activity. Further, the project aims to equip youth with technical (agriculture) and business skills – SDG 4 Quality Education.
On sustainability, we plan to start with the family unit ensuring participants can cater to their immediate needs – SDG 2 Zero Hunger. We will also look into managed services where members can provide services to other farmers at a fee as a club.
As the project scales, we will explore sustainable partnerships (SDG 17 Partnerships for the Goals) to connect the Agriventure Clubs to local markets, for example, supplying produce to supermarkets, hotels and restaurants. Here we will again benefit from the network of organisations and activities provided by football to establish different value chains.
Project Manager
Project Management Institute – Kenya Chapter.
