About the Bright Professional Opportunities and Empowerment of Youth and Women program for community-led sustainable development in Guinea-Bissau (BPOE)
About the project funded by GIZ and KFW in Guinea-Bissau and Fund for Stabilization and Regional Development in Fragile Regions of ECOWAS Member States (FRSD)
The FRSD is a program that seeks to strengthen Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) member states to react pre-emptively to crises, implement sustainability measures and improve people's resilience. This project is commissioned and financed by the German Federal Ministry for Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by GIZ and KFW.
This call for ERAs is part of the Bright Professional Opportunities and Empowerment of Youth and Women program for community-led sustainable development in Guinea-Bissau (BPOE). The partnership is implemented as part of the Fund for Regional Stabilization and Development in Fragile Regions in ECOWAS Member States (FRSD) led by ECOWAS with support from GIZ. OGD is one of the national implementing partners of the consortium in collaboration with SWISSAID and Access Agriculture.
We invite young Guinean women and men to propose innovative ideas for starting a business, or expanding their existing services, around the dissemination of agricultural training videos using a Digisoft smart projector. Click here for information on the smart projector.
Members of Self-help groups (SHGs) and Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) are preferable.
Location: Bolama/Guinea-Bissau Sector
Eligibility
- Candidates: Teams of up to three young people can submit an application. At least one team member must be a woman.
- Age: 18-35 years
- Residence of ERAs: Guinea-Bissau
- Date of submission: by 31 August 2024
- Language skills: Bilingual proficiency in Portuguese and Kriol, knowledge of English or French would be an added advantage
Please note: All coaching and training instructions will be provided in Portuguese. It is therefore important for candidates to have good command of Portuguese.
Proposal Guidelines
- Teams of up to three young people can submit an application. At least one team member must be a woman.
- Each person can only be part of one proposal
- The application can only be submitted in Portuguese via the Access Agriculture website https://www.accessagriculture.org/
- A draft proposal can be made and saved as you progress. You can edit your application as many times as you want until it is ready to submit.
- The key ideas of your commercial proposal must be presented in the submission form.
Steps to follow for submitting an application:
- Register/create an account or login on the website of Access Agriculture here: https://www.accessagriculture.org/user/register
- Account verification: Check your inbox/junk/spam folder for a message from info@accessagriculture.org for the email address you used to create the account. Click on the link (URL) in the message to activate your account.
- Existence of an account: If you already have an account on the Access Agriculture website, there is no need to create another one.
- Read the application guidelines: Once the account is verified, return to the Access Agriculture website and carefully read the application instructions and FAQ’s. Click here for the Frequently Asked Questions.
- Complete the application form: To open the application form click on “Apply Online”. Fill out the required information on each page. You can “save” the form and edit or fill it out later. All questions must be answered before submitting the application.
- Preview the form: Go to the last page and click on “preview”. All the completed information will be displayed and you can read it before submitting. If you want to make changes you can click on “previous page” and go back to the form.
- Submit the form: Once you have finished filling out the information, go to the last page, click “preview” and then click “submit”. The form will be sent and can no longer be edited.
Please note: Incomplete forms will not be considered - and remember to submit your application before the deadline.
- Email confirmation: After submitting the form, check for the application receipt confirmation message in your inbox/junk/spam folder of the email address used to create your account on Access Agriculture.
The following questions need to be answered in the application
- What motivated you to apply for this challenge fund? (100 words maximum)
- What problem/s in your community do you think you would be able to solve using a smart projector and showing videos? (100 words maximum)
- When using the smart projector, how do you plan to make money in rural communities? (in other words, how you plan to make money with the smart projector) (250 words maximum)
- Who is your target audience/expected customers (projects, farmer groups, organizations, individuals)? (100 words maximum)
- How many farmers in the surrounding rural communities do you expect to reach per month for video viewing? (100 words maximum)
- What strategy will you use to reach the number of farmers mentioned? How will you mobilize these farmers to view videos? (250 words maximum)
- How will you reach young people and women in your target communities? (100 words maximum)
- How can you provide video services to different NGOs and government organisations to reach more farmers? (100 words maximum)
- If you already have a business, how will the projector add value to your current business? If it is a new business, what other associated services can you offer to the targeted audience along with the video views? (250 words maximum)
- How will you share your experiences of using the smart projector with Access Agriculture?
Selection Process
- A committee of ERA coaches, communication and development professionals will review and assess the proposals based on the novelty and strength of the proposal in promoting oragnic agriculture using Access Agriculture videos.
- A shortlist of pre-selected applicants will be developed by the committee.
- The pre-selected applicants will be informed via email and/or phone call.
- An online interview will be held with shortlisted applicants.
- Candidates selected from the interviews will be invited to pitch their business idea to the committee.
- The shortlisted candidates will be informed about the outcome of the interview one week after the interview.
- Nine (3) teams will be selected.
- The selected winners will have a face-to-face meeting with the ERA coach to clarify roles and reporting, training and handover of the smart projector.
Implementation required for winners:
- If you are a winner, you will be expected to sign a code of conduct document that stipulates that you will effectively use the smart projector to show Access Agriculture videos until the end of the project under which you have been recruited to grow your business or services, to promote organic agriculture and agroecology and report back regularly to Access Agriculture. At the end of the project, the projector will become your property.
- All winners are obliged to start activities within FIRST month after receiving the Smart Projector. After one month if there is no work, the ERA team will receive a warning and after 2 months the ERA Coach will take the projector back
- Access Agriculture reserves the right to take back the smart projector for failure to carry out activities.
For any clarifications, please first check the FAQ here (this will open in a new page). If you still have questions, please contact the ERA coach in Guinea-Bissau, Josualdo Semedo at josualdo@accessagriculture.org (+245 969175802 / 956110092)
Apply Online Now: Remember you must be registered and logged in to fill in the application form.
