Sinyendeende is a small and disadvantaged community situated in the West of Monze District. Despite limited opportunities available to youths in the community, there is strong potential for economic empowerment due to its relative proximity only 7km from the nearest major town - which could enable the sale of produce to market.
Youths in this village are caught in the ‘out-of-school and out-of-work’ poverty trap, education in the village's community school only goes up to grade 7 - further avenues for the continuation of secondary education in Monze Town are stifled by cost, available places, and transport. Furthermore, there is little economic activity in the community beyond subsistence farming.
Through our collaborative work with Sinyendeende community stakeholders, and after much discussion with our youth participants, aquaculture has become the focus of our economic empowerment program. The main goal is the production of a fresh supply of tilapia fish to the town market, alongside a side-venture growing fish fingerlings and manufacturing blood-meal for sale to other rural aquaculture projects.
Training for this initiative is underway, being directly conducted by our Zambian Director (a qualified fish-farmer) in conjunction with our netball and football sports programmes - which have been well-received and will soon see the construction of Sinyendeende’s first netball pitch.
Headmen in the village have embraced our project with full-heartedness, and the Euroza Foundation has been invited to establish a 2 hectare permaculture system on community land for the purposes of training youth participants from across our projects due to the Sinyendeende’s central location.
