My name is Giramahoro Guy Fleury and I’m a 20 year-old Burundian that is in his first year of Business Administration at l’Université Lumière de Bujumbura. Besides this, I am driving a small project of goat farming.
My interest in agriculture started in the beginning of 2013. I was in the secondary school and there is where I noticed that after the studies it wouldn’t be easy to find a job. Therefore, four classmates and I decided to create a club that we named “Youth for Sustainable Progress” in order to begin an entrepreneurship start-up with small projects.
My name is Giramahoro Guy Fleury and I’m a 20 year-old Burundian that is in his first year of Business Administration at l’Université Lumière de Bujumbura. Besides this, I am driving a small project of goat farming.
My interest in agriculture started in the beginning of 2013. I was in the secondary school and there is where I noticed that after the studies it wouldn’t be easy to find a job. Therefore, four classmates and I decided to create a club that we named “Youth for Sustainable Progress” in order to begin an entrepreneurship start-up with small projects.
"The Club"
As everyone was given a task within the club, mine was to elaborate projects. In May 2013, one of the club members, Ezechiel had the idea of laying hen farming. We started with twenty laying hen and then we looked for a space where the project could take place, but after starting to build the henhouse we realized that we hadn’t enough materials and tools to keep it. Two of us quitted the club and only three remained: Ezechiel, Brice and me.
In October 2013 we got the opportunity to participate in a Web 2.0 and Social Media Learning in Bujumbura, organized by CTA in which we were taught many things about web communication, e.g. how to create a blog and a Facebook page. It was in that workshop where I got to know about the existence of YPARD.
In the beginning of 2014, we came out with the new idea of goat farming. In April, we bought five goats and brought them in Bujumbura. Brice got the chance to continue his University studies in China so as we remained in two in Burundi, we took this situation as an advantage by figuring out how Brice’s presence in China could help the club in gaining knowledge, as well as in diversifying our activities, forums, etc.
Goat farming project
I carried out the project of goat farming by feeding two pregnant goats with 10 kilos of wheat, rice and corn bran mixed per month. But one day one goat got sick. I had to find some medicine soon as the illness could be contagious and affect the other one, so I went to the veterinary drugstore and fortunately I found the right one to save the goat. After this first project, we are trying to reinforce our knowledge in how we can develop a farming project in a professional way.
Few days ago, Ezechiel, Brice and me participated in a competition organized by the African Innovation Prize that I won with our project of farming intensively neutered goats. Thanks to it, we are able now to benefit from a formation course at the Burundi Business Incubator in order to learn how to write a bankable business plan, which is our main goal so far.
All in all, we see our current project as the base that will help us improve our activities in the agribusiness sector, by performing our activity of goat farming and extending our activities in other farming domains.