New year, New Hopes

The end of any year is always a strange period, but this time due to impacts of the global Covid 19 pandemic, it felt even more so. It seemed as if everybody was turning inwards, slowing down and coming to a halt, sitting safely inside behind their laptops, just waiting for the year to end.

After a refreshing break, with the new year 2021 now started, and a few lights glimmering at the end of the COVID-tunnel, we

 are in high spirits and ready for new challenges.

What does the coming year, 2021, hold in store for us?

We expect 2021 to be a year of further growth and transition for our company. We have signed a contract with the Netherlands Food Partnership to manage their regional Youth in Agroecology and Business Learning Track Africa (YALTA) over the next

 two years. Thacien Munyamahame will continue to manage the programme for us. YALTA will allow us to reach out to many young agricultural entrepreneurs, and their networks, to help them in promoting agro-ecological value chains. Our training courses in gender in agriculture, rural extension and soft skills development will also help them become better entrepreneurs. In addition, through the international YALTA network we expect to see our courses reach audiences beyond Rwanda, and be accessed by Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia.

In the meantime, we continue to attract more attention and interest from organisations who, due to Covid 19, are now increasing their efforts to make the transition from face-to-face to online teaching and learning programmes and courses. We look forward to seeing this attention and interest translate into some interesting assignments for our team.

As a result of this growth in interest in online training and development, we are currently hiring two new interns, and planning to move to a larger office in a few months’ time.

With plenty of exciting prospects in the year ahead, I am feeling happy and energized. However, the one thing that will really make my year is that when Christmas 2021 arrives, we will all be able to hug each other again!

Jan Willem Eggink