First of all, I have to thank Action Synergy who gave me the opportunity to participate in such an interesting program. In a few words, I can say that I fulfilled the 100% of my expectations through this program.
Firstly, a little about the idea of AGRO – Sustainable Agricultural Entrepreneurship for Young Workers in Africa and Europe.
It is great that through a European community project we have the opportunity to meet people that work in the same sector like us. It gave us the chance to realize that the problems we face in agriculture production are the same globally and share ideas according to the experience of each other to manage them in the best way.
About the experience in Buea a lot can be told. Cameroon is a very friendly and rich in natural resources country. The contrast between the traditional way of living according to the local economy and the vast developing westernized infrastructures made me think a lot about the right way of adopting the benefits of development without destroying the local structure of living.
The program of lectures and interactive practical exercises was very well organized so we learned how to build a business plan and monitoring its implementation. We worked as a team with the participants of the other countries and through this process we came closer and met each other exchanging opinions and ideas of how to manage and designing a project. Under the guidance of the lecturers we understood the importance of applying our ideas in detail on paper and present them to the potential investors in a formal and convincing way to approve the reliability and potential success of our project.
Although our stay lasted a little I made great friends from all the countries participated. I directly came in contact with people that we have common thinks to discuss and share experiences about the way of living in our countries. These friendships I built are very special and both sides appreciated that we were so lucky getting in touch through this program. These contacts I made follow me back to Greece and we promise to meet again sometime and giving advice and knowledge to the aspects on we are both face. Apart from the agricultural practices we also exchanged ideas about how we can help each other trading our products between our countries.
As a conclusion I can say that this experience will be very useful for me in the future and something I will never forget. I feel a lot closer to African countries now and I know well that even a month as a tourist in a place like Cameroon could not offer me the experience getting in touch with local people like we did even in such a short time.
Wish the best for the future to all the people worked this program to be achieved and to all the participants and new friends I made.
Vangelis Michelakis for Action Synergy (March 2016)
As a conclusion I can say that this experience will be very useful for me in the future and something I will never forget. I feel a lot closer to African countries now and I know well that even a month as a tourist in a place like Cameroon could not offer me the experience getting in touch with local people like we did even in such a short time.