Horticulture expert Gipsy D’Urzo returned last month from West Africa, having completed Winrock’s first volunteer assignment in Senegal for the Farmer-to-Farmer for Agriculture Education and Training Program, funded by USAID.

Winrock is grateful to have shared this milestone with Gipsy, and to have experienced her expertise and enthusiasm. “It was interesting to be the first volunteer in Senegal.Staff finished setting up the office just before I arrived. They were eager to get started,”she explains. “This was my first time to Senegal and to a Francophone West African country. I was very pleased with the experience, and I have a very, very good impression of the Winrock staff there!”

the F2F team in Senegal

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Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer Michael Lowery recently returned from his volunteer trip in Nigeria, where he provided training to the Association of Non-Bank Microfinance Institutions of Nigeria (ANMFIN) on agricultural value chain financing. With this training, ANMFIN hopes to be able to develop a model for agriculture lending, train its members on the model, and ultimately increase lending for agriculture sector clients.

Inspired about what they learned, ANMFIN representatives immediately sent the following note:

Dear Michael, I must confess, you are a genius. You work tirelessly with passion and commitment to your assignment. I am confident that with you leading the way, ANMFIN will reach its going concern in no time. A very big thank you to Winrock for bringing you to ANMFI Nigeria!

Winrock is equally grateful for Michael’s efforts, and we look forward to following up with ANMFIN in the future to see the impacts from this assignment!

A team of graduate students from Thunderbird School of Global Management is in Nepal for an exciting five-week assignment with the Kathmandu University School of Management.  Their blog http://emergingmarketslab.thunderbird.edu/blog/kusom-f2f provides insights on their assignment tasks and day-to-day experiences. Check it out!

We look forward to following their progress and seeing the results of their great work!

We are pleased to have just completed our first Farmer-to-Farmer for Agriculture Education and Training (F2F for AET) assignment in Senegal! Volunteer Matilde D’Urzo describes her experience in the blog post below:

“It is my first time in Senegal. I also happen to be the first volunteer for Winrock’s F2F for AET Program in this country. I arrive late at night in Dakar and all the passengers entering the airport building are immediately checked for temperature, due to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in neighboring countries. I am warmly welcomed by Mme Ndeye Mama, Winrock Country Director, and her husband, Mr. Ousmane. This is one of the trademarks of the program: local staff is always available and everybody truly goes out of their way to make you feel comfortable. The Winrock office is brand new and well set for expansion: there is plenty of space. There is also a great sense of anticipation, because finally F2F is starting in earnest and the first volunteer has arrived.

My task is to work with the teachers  at the Horticulture Vocational Training Center in Cambéréne on Competence-Based Education (CBA), soon to be adopted, and to build their capacity to develop course content based on this approach. Camberene is few kilometers from Ngor, the neighborhood where the Winrock office is and where I am staying at a local hotel. Many entities, either public or private, many NGOs and international organizations are relocating from the center of Dakar into this area, which is also very close to the airport, in the attempt to decentralize operations and escape the traffic and crowd of the inner city. (more…)

In the fall of 2013, Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) volunteers worked with the USAID/Guinea Agriculture Education and Market Improvement Program (AEMIP) and faculty from the Institut Supérieur Agronomique Valéry Giscard d’Estaing de Faranah (ISAVF) to conduct an institutional assessment of ISAVF and to develop an action plan outlining important interventions to enable ISAVF to emerge as a center of excellence in agriculture education and training (AET).

A year later, ISAVF was able to put what they learned during the assessment process into practice, taking the lead to conduct institutional assessments and develop five-year action plans for four agricultural schools across the country. ISAVF selected four faculty to undertake the assessments as volunteers, working with the AEMIP Deputy Program Director, F2F Country Director, and a representative from the Ministry of Technical Education and Professional Training.

This process allowed ISAVF to build internal capacity and also expand its role as a leader and a partner in the collective efforts to strengthen AET in Guinea. (more…)