Young empowering young model – Cadbury Cocoa Ambassadors share experience

Shared experiences from Cadbury Cocoa Ambassadors in Ghana lighted up the 'Young People, Farming and Food' conference in Accra, as they inspired hope of youth involvement in Africa's agricultural production.

The Ambassadorial program under the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership has engaged ten talented students from various tertiary institutions to help drive the farming interest of young people in cocoa growing communities.

The program has adopted the 'Young Empowering Young Model' to whip up enthusiasm among young people to get actively involved in the cocoa supply chain.

Ambassador Ebenezer Annor is a 22-year old final year agricultural student of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). He has for the past two years been mobilizing other students to volunteer support services in cocoa growing district.

Interventions, he said, include organizing vacation schools, establish reading clubs for children and implement sanitation programmes in the cocoa growing communities.

Some of the ambassadors are also focused on encouraging the youth in farming communities to approach agriculture, especially cocoa production, as a business, through the establishment of demonstration farms.

Kelvin Doe, who studies Accounting at the Institute of Professional Studies (IPS), organizes seminars and other activities on campus to identify students with entrepreneurial interest and willing to channel their resources to support farmers.

He observed that most youth in cocoa growing districts are reluctant to venture the sector because farming had not been beneficial to their parents.

“But we through the community extension agents and the local cocoa facilitators let them to understand the business model of producing cocoa and if you apply all the practices the extension officers put you through, you'll be able to realize so much out of cocoa”, stated Kelvin.

The Cadbury Cocoa Partnership was launched in 2008 with a £45million investment over a ten-year period in key cocoa growing communities in Ghana, India, the Caribbean and South East Asia.

Ghana, as a key origin of cocoa, is receiving about £30million of the investment.

Director, Program Coordinating Unit, Cadbury Cocoa Partnership, Yaa Peprah Amekudzi, said 20 more ambassadors will be recruited this year to operate in 209 communities to help improve production and increase incomes of farmer.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh/Luv Fm/Ghana