Tatah Blaise

Tatah has been a key member of CENDEP, a Cameroonian environmental organization promoting sustainable livelihoods and conservation objectives, since 2012. In that time he has worked in a number of communities carrying out numerous activities, including organising dialogue meetings, setting up committees, carrying out assessments and conducting seminars and workshops in order to promote conservation and community development. He demonstrated his leadership capabilities in particular when he coordinated the planting of over 17,000 trees in the Mbiame region as part of a restoration project, while also developing a pioneer analog agro-forestry demonstration unit which has been used to teach hundreds of future-trainers in agroforestry practices. He also enjoyed particular success project managing CENDEP’s Cassava Project in the Mount Cameroon region, working with women in the community to ensure the effective implementation of the project.

In order to realise the full income-potential of his analog agro-forestry practices, which involve the growing of products such as tea, coffee, cocoa, shea butter and amaranthus, it is crucial that he learns more about the value chain development process of these products. To that end, he will use the grant to take a short course on Agricultural Value Chain Development and Market Linkages, in which he not only hopes to learn more about the intricacies of value chain development, but also how to organize smallholder farmers into grassroots cooperatives and how to ensure that women are empowered through this process.