Youths Enterprise Development and Innovation Society (YEDIS) held a workshop on Marketing for Agricultural Products and the Empowerment of thirty women and girls at Iba, a rural community in Osun State, Nigeria, on 28th January 2022.Â
In his presentation, Rafiu Olaore encouraged the women and girls involved in the food business within the Iba community to actively engage in environmental protection. He emphasized the importance of managing waste, as well as mitigating water and air pollution, through the careful selection of materials and the optimization of production processes to eliminate harmful emissions. Rafiu also advised the community members to adopt climate-resilient practices to prevent potential losses and damages that could impede their economic and material growth.
Yedis, a nonprofit organization, donated 100 liters of ten buckets to the best ten female entrepreneurs “fufu” producers and twenty thousand naira (N20,000) to the other 20 participants. “Fufu” is a solid food made from cassava and eaten mainly by West Africans. Women and girls dominate the agricultural cassava processing sector in Nigeria’s rural communities as their livelihood. In the Iba community, “fufu” production takes the most significant percentage of the businesses due to the vast land for cassava production.
In line with the YEDIS mission to develop entrepreneurial mindsets among the youths and based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Agenda (SDG 2030), YEDIS focuses on poverty reduction, gender equality, education, and industrialization to promote social wellbeing and community development.
At the empowerment event, one of the challenges raised by the participant is the lack of equipment and materials to package the product for long-distance and exportation outside the country.