2022 is set to be another productive and exciting year for HoP Africa.
Looking at these first three months of 2022, we have a lot of reasons to celebrate.
We’ve been working hard. It has been pretty intense – we’re creating networks, exploring and building strategic partnership opportunities that will serve to achieve our vision of “building socio-economically independent and self-sustaining individuals and communities.”
The successes we have recorded so far have fueled us to do more.
We began the year with an overhaul and restructuring of the company to ensure that we maximize all of our resources while revitalizing our units to operate efficiently.
Our process of building new partnerships began with a visit to Green Sahara, a full-scope and optimum scale agricultural enterprise that is specialized in the development, facilitation and management of solutions within the agro-industrial range. They have been involved in the proactive development of agro-resources through a vibrant, dynamic and innovative work order keen on providing sustainable value to all. Green Sahara leverages world-class expert development resources and we felt the need to build a partnership that will develop the agro-value chain in Plateau State, and Nigeria at large.
We also visited the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, (SMEDAN) to understand their structure, their operations, and how their programs can benefit the individuals and communities we work with. We discovered that they have a lot of opportunities for SMEs; ranging from training, access to grants and soft loans. We spoke to them about increasing their level of publicity by exploring not just print media for advertisements, but also social media and other digital platforms so that a large percentage of the general public can have information whenever these opportunities come around.
We are excited to announce that the German Agency for International Cooperation (GiZ) through its Green Innovation Center for Agriculture sent an assessment team to HoP Africa to evaluate the work we have done so far and to see how they can help us build capacity to handle more sustainable projects in the agricultural value chain.
We are official partners and we cannot wait for the value this partnership brings to our communities. As a fruit of this partnership, Hop Africa is currently at a training on Market Oriented Extension Training thanks to the GIZ.
We have also been able to register our Project pere-Rat potato value chain women into a co-operative. Plans are underway to set up a one-stop Agro shop in the Fan district which will be run by the women as a continuous means of generating revenue and to ensure that the input they use on their farms is not harmful. And that they are accessible to them at the best prices.
And Yes! The Naija Book and Citizens Club has been blooming with deeply engaging and conscious conversations by passionate young people. These conversations keep our hope for a better Nigeria alive. We are working to move from just conversations to actionable projects such as sensitization programmes, interactive sessions with major players in the sectors that our conversations revolve around.
We’ve been developing the habit of reading, writing and learning, which means we are creating a consistent ritual for the building blocks of a productive business and personal sharing. In our bid to impact and equip, we are launching the first-ever HoP Africa leadership series next month where we will be taking 10 young people through three days of intensive learning and interaction with high impact individuals. We’ve also dedicated our Wednesdays to HoP Learning Day. On Wednesdays our team comes together and a team member shares on an assigned topic. We believe capacity building can be also done in house through research and training simulations.
There is more to our first quarter review than what we’ve shared here and we will continue to update you as the year continues to reveal to us what it has in store for us. We have had the pleasure of working with vibrant young people over the past year and we have seen first-hand the energy young people use in striving for perfection and in encouraging others to do work that matters.
Cheers,
Nimdir Nansoh
CEO HoP Africa
March 2022