The 24 year old Fatou Ndiaye (left) lives in the Toubatoul district of Senegal with her husband, her mother-in-law, and her three-year-old daughter. On top of her responsibilities as a mother and wife, she works for myAgro as a village entrepreneur (VE) to keep herself busy with a career that allows her to improve her community.
Since women are often disproportionally affected by unemployment, myAgro puts intentional effort into ensuring that women like Fatou are integrated into every step of the model by offering them fulfilling careers.
“The reason why I joined myAgro, was because I saw how it really helped people in the village,” she says, “The quality of the program is very well appreciated among farmers.”
Fatou recently got married and found herself with extra time on her hands. When the field agent came to her and proposed she work as a VE, she pondered taking the job to fill up the extra time.
“I realized that this job as a VE was an opportunity to keep me busy while at the same time bringing added value to the village. So I took the job.” Thanks to the marketing trainings Fatou received, the young VE was able to enroll at least 50 farmers in her village during the first weeks of enrollment.
To continue to empower women like Fatou, myAgro is aiming to increase the number of field agents to 30 per cent in the coming years, in addition to investing in women’s leadership through the Women’s Leadership Program in Mali.
