[ad_1]
In Guatemala, young men and women often work in precarious jobs in the informal rural economy, earning as little as half the national minimum wage. An increasing number are trying to migrate to urban areas or abroad as a last resort to make a living.
To meet this challenge, FAO’s Integrated Country Approach (ICA) for promoting decent rural employment has been contributing to the implementation of Guatemala’s national decent work policy through various coordination activities in the country’s most migrant-prone regions.
Since 2015, ICA’s overall goal in Guatemala has been to empower rural youth to become entrepreneurs and drivers of rural economic development, while improving the existing policy environment to include them as a priority group.
To this end, FAO is supporting youth to design and launch multi-sector production initiatives in their communities, using a collaborative economy approach.
The world is facing a global unemployment crisis, with young women and men particularly disadvantaged: their unemployment rate is almost three times that of adults. At the same time, there are large untapped farm and off-farm employment opportunities in agriculture. The challenge is to ensure that rural development creates decent and productive employment opportunities for youth. This requires an integrated approach to agriculture and rural development, with a particular focus on improving the coherence of policies related to agriculture, employment and youth.
FAO has developed an integrated country approach to promote decent rural employment to meet these needs, drawing on policy and strategic advice, technical support and capacity development, partnerships, and advocacy and communication.
Rural Youth Entrepreneurship Laboratory
One of the initiatives implemented by the Guatemala ICA project is La Work Factorya business lab that helps young women and men develop community-centered entrepreneurship. The program provided 60 young women and men, aged 20 to 30, from the immigration-prone regions of Quetzaltenango, San Marcos, Huehuetenango and Totonicapán with three months of training in entrepreneurial skills and local development.
Alongside the training, the programme supports youth in assessing local markets, identifying alliances and developing financially viable project proposals to be implemented with their communities. All projects have strong links to agriculture and livestock and explore the potential of niche markets and green entrepreneurship. Each project aims to involve 50 to 100 families in each community, forming a cooperative. About 50 of these proposals will receive direct support from FAO and the Ministry of Economy to mobilize the necessary investments.
“In my community, difficult decisions often have to be made, like sending children or even babies abroad. Everyone migrates: young boys and girls, young women, even whole families,” explains María Chum Pastor, one of the young people involved in La Factoria.
Maria is a 26-year-old farmer in Clementoro, Aguacatán. With this initiative, she has co-designed a multi-sector business project with her community, focusing on raising livestock, producing and selling cheese, potatoes and green vegetables, and making organic fertilizer. This will allow her to boost her family’s current subsistence farming, create a cooperative and promote the establishment of 10 to 15 microenterprises in the community.
“Agriculture is part of our culture; it is a gift from our ancestors. Therefore, we need to preserve it by making it more sustainable,” Maria said. “This project is changing my life and the lives of our community, and I am proud of it now,” she concluded.
Another young beneficiary of La factoryNelson Chun Ramírez, 25, is from La Independence Village in the city of Tejutla. Three years ago, Nelson tried to immigrate to the United States, just like many other young people from his community. Now, with the support of La Independence Village, factoryHe is working to consolidate vegetable and meat production from producers in villages, including his own, to increase commercialization and get these products into regional and national markets.
“Due to the lack of job opportunities, I want to emigrate. Thanks to La factoryI now see the opportunities that are possible for me here and for my family,” Nelson said. “Being involved in this program has given me a broader perspective on my project. I want to create jobs for young men and women in the community who want to stay close to their loved ones and not have to move somewhere else.”
Manuel Antonio Figueroa Perez, 20, from the municipality of Tacaná, San Marcos, is planning to build an ecotourism center called Linda Vista that will involve the community by selling local products such as mushrooms, fruits, medicinal plants and coffee.
“Rural communities often lack the experience or technical assistance needed to launch entrepreneurial initiatives. Likewise, they do not have capital and employment opportunities are very scarce,” Manuel noted.
“Now, thanks to the training provided by La factoryI was able to see that there are endless resources that have never been exploited and from which the most can now be gained. I believe that in five years I will be part of a business or ecotourism complex that is productive and creates decent jobs.”
Replicate and sustain this initiative
Manuel, Nelson and Maria are just three of 60 Young Rural Champions selected to become drivers of rural development in their communities. They are now working with FAO and Guatemalan public and private institutions to raise awareness of a project supported by the University of Lagos. factoryas well as attracting potential private investment and government support.
FAO is working with the Guatemalan Ministry of Agriculture to develop a web platform linked to a mobile application to further raise the profile of these initiatives. This in turn will facilitate the creation of new networks of young entrepreneurs and increase their access to technical support and funding, including through crowdfunding, remittances (from Guatemalans living abroad) and microcredit.
this factoryAs a training approach that can be easily replicated to identify areas for enterprise development and empower young people to capitalize on them, FAO is currently working with public and private stakeholders to find innovative solutions for the next and most difficult steps: leveraging investment capital and regulating enterprises.
[ad_2]
Source link
