TUCOCPRCOS is a sugar cane primary cooperative located in Madizini village, in the Mvomera district, in Tanzania. The first idea to set up their youth council was planted during Agriterra's ‘Jobs Jobs Jobs project’ carried out in 2020, in which Agriterra subsidised the recruitment and employment of young talent to work for the cooperative.
Through the involvement of a young manager and accountant hired under Jobs Jobs Jobs, TUCOCPRCOS realised the importance of involving youth into cooperative activities, which stimulated the organisation to start several youth supporting initiatives.
In November 2020, TUCOCPRCOS participated in a youth kick-off workshop which emphasized the importance of actively involving youth in the cooperative as this gives a competitive advantage for achieving the goals, mission and vision of the cooperative.
During the youth workshop the cooperative developed a short action plan to promote youth involvement, with 3 key activities:
(1) creating a youth council,
(2) establish youth groups in every village branch
(3) support youth operated projects.
After the kick-off workshop, Agriterra followed up the activities defined in the action plan via on-field visits and remote coaching, finding that board members acknowledged the importance of young people within the cooperative and that some young members started to meet up for the formation of a youth council, expected to be in place by 2021.
Nevertheless, there was some internal conflict in the board which made the creation of the youth council a slow process. Thus, Agriterra provided some extra support during this interim period by giving advice and collaborating with the cooperative in 2022. This eventually led to the successful establishment of the youth council in June 2022, composed of 13 young members, each representing a village branch. In addition, the board approved that each village branch should form its own youth committee of 5 members.
