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Ask Us Anything Concerning Strategic Development Scholarship-based Community Regenerative Development and Reducing Food Insecurity and Hunger
Strategic Development Scholarship (SDS) is a unique form and process of individual, organization and institution capacity building, mapping and leveraging in and for Community Regenerative Development (CRD). It involves the use of anchor-projects’ activities for teaching/learning, training, mentoring, conducting research, providing public services, and promoting relevant policy evolution.
In the context of CRD, an anchor-project is a source of financial security or stability for the requisite multi-objective and multi-stakeholder projects promoting CRD and providing an effective practice environment. In this case, an example is Organic Solid Waste Upcycling (OSWU) into biofertilizers, food/mushrooms, and animal/fish feeds in the form of a Social Enterprise (SE). The activities of the SE are used for OSWU teaching/learning, training, mentoring, conducting research, providing public services, and promoting relevant policy evolution.
This would lead to significant occupational opportunities, including:
i. Management or ownership of commercial OSWU facilities;
ii. Agricultural credit officers for banks, government, loan agencies, and farm cooperative loan agencies;
iii. Secondary school agriculture teacher/agriculture educator in OSWU;
iv. Food/mushroom, feed, seed, and biofertilizer sales technicians;
v. OSWU writes of technical publications, radio and TV scrips, news items for blogs, magazines and newspapers, education and public relations materials;
vi. Manager/assistant manager for OSWU supply and support services;
vii. Warehouse managers for OSWU products and raw materials;
viii. OSWU Social Enterprise franchising management;
ix. Agricultural/OSWU consulting services.
The prevailing approaches to Regenerative Development (RD) concept implementation have not worked in an effective and sustainable manner, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite epic efforts by public, private, academic, community and civil society entities, individually and collaboratively, the approaches are not likely to work well for many reasons, including poor, non-holistic and non-complexity-informed program design and implementation. Therefore, more real-world complexity-informed approaches are needed, but that should not mean that their design and operability are complex and cumbersome. Even Bill Gates said “rich countries are tackling hunger in Africa all wrong”
The “anchor-project” Social Enterprise activities/processes operate within a community comprised of sector-stakeholders of private, public, university, civil society/NGO, and constituency-group [entities-in-situation]; forming a Penta Helix Partnership (PHP) on Community Regenerative Development (CRD), whether they know and/or acknowledge it or not. PHP is one of the concepts of cross-sector collaboration of stakeholders on CRD attempting to provide a more effective method for holism and complexity-informed program design and implementation, as in Organic Solid Waste Upcycling and Franchising Program.
The location of the Organic Solid Waste Upcycling (OSWU) Facility/Center will be as close to one of the university consortium members as possible, considering raw material, including portable water, availability, transportation and market. This will be in a location and environment conducive for providing tomorrow’s OSWU entrepreneurs, with the skills to make local organic [agriculture, municipal and industrial] waste management and agriculture economically viable through the application of mixed traditional and advanced production practices and the development of value-added products.
To provide a high-quality apprenticeship program, the OSWU Facility/Center must meet the following 10 key requirements:
1. Paid Work. The program must ensure that apprentices are paid at least the applicable Federal, State, or local minimum wage. The program must provide a written notice to apprentices of what wages they will receive and under what circumstances their wages will increase.
2. Written Training Plan. The must have a written training plan, consistent with its student required experience’s (SRE’s) requirements and standards. The written training plan, which must be provided to an apprentice prior to beginning a program, must detail the program’s structured work experiences and appropriate related instruction. The training plan must be designed so that apprentices demonstrate competency and earn credential(s), and provide apprentices progressively advancing industry-essential skills.
3. Written OSWU Apprenticeship Agreement. The program must maintain a written OSWU apprenticeship agreement for each apprentice that outlines the terms and conditions of the apprentice’s employment and training. The OSWU apprenticeship agreement must be consistent with its SRE’s requirements.
4. Specialized Knowledge and Experience. The program must train apprentices for employment in jobs that require specialized knowledge and experience and involve the performance of complex tasks relating to OSWU.
5. Safety. The program must provide a working environment for apprentices that adheres to all applicable Federal, State, and local safety laws and regulations and complies with any additional safety requirements of its SRE.
6. Equal Employment Opportunity. The program must affirm their adherence to all applicable Federal, State, and local laws pertaining to Equal Employment Opportunity.
7. Credit for Prior Knowledge. The program must provide credit for prior knowledge and experience to apprentices relevant to the instruction of the program.
8. Mentorship. The program must provide apprentices structured mentorship opportunities throughout the duration of the apprenticeship that involve ongoing, focused supervision and training by experienced instructors and employees, to ensure apprentices have additional guidance on the progress of their training and their employability.
9. Industry-Recognized Credentials. The program must provide apprentices industry-recognized credential(s) during participation in or upon completion of the program.
10. Disclosure of Costs and Fees. The program must disclose to apprentices, before they agree to participate in the program, any costs or expenses that will be charged to them (such as costs related to tools, educational materials, or franchising).