Benjaka Emmanual is a sixty-year-old participant and beneficiary of the interest-free loan from mindset change project.
He is from Bwanda community of mile 16, a father of four with over twenty years of experience in agriculture.
However, his output has never really left any meaningful impact in his life because he has been doing this in a very menial and uncoordinated manner.
He got involved in agriculture with a very wrong mindset as it was simply for subsistence purpose and since he had never really considered that agriculture could be done differently and be a good business for him, the outputs have been very low.
He was never making any organized budget or plan on how and when to cultivate which crops and for what purpose and consequently, could not yield any reasonable outputs thus, could not adequately provide some basic facilities for his family like food, healthcare and school fees for his children.
His encounter with MECPAM and his active participant in the mindset change project was his breakthrough as he confesses “I want to thank God for MEPCAM for the entrepreneurship trainings they offered me and how these trainings have changed my mindset, I now think differently and do things in a different way.
The way I cultivate my maize and cucumber is different, I now look for market before going into business, I plan very well and make a budget before launching my business, I take time to speak politely to my customers and also look into the society and see what problems my community has and think of better ways to provide a solution to this problem in a way that will yield a reasonable profit to me.”
The above confession explains why Benjaka is involved in the cultivation of maize during the dry season. Since MEPCAM has trained him to do things differently as he professes above, he has discovered that maize and cucumber become very scarce in the market during the dry season and consequently very expensive.
After receiving, entrepreneurship trainings, couching and an interest-free loan of one hundred thousand CFA 100,000 (1654.19) from MEPCAM, he decided to rent a piece of wetland where he cultivates cucumber and maize during the dry season.
He has sold cucumber for over thirty (CFA 30,000) (496.47 SEK) just in a week and in five weeks, giving him about a hundred and fifty thousand (CFA150,000) (2482.37 SEK) and the sales of three maize for two hundred (CFA 200) (3.31 SEK) is an additional motivation for him and many others who pass by the farm.
He makes a profit of CFA 150,000 (2482.37 SEK) from the cultivation of cucumber, something he would never have dreamt of until he met MEPCAM.
He can provide food, healthcare and other basic needs of his family from his market garden business.