Job Description
What words will describe your Peace Corps service as a Sustainable Agricultural Systems Promoter in Benin? Collaboration. Food Security. Economic Development. Learning. Community. Growth. Adaptation. Leadership. Belonging.
Imagine watching the sunrise as you bike to your community garden, greeting the people you meet in the local language. After watering your plot, you and your counterpart meet a group of young mothers under a mango tree to co-facilitate a training on nutrition. You go to friend’s house for lunch, just in time to help make your favorite cassava and fish dish. In the afternoon, you and your counterpart meet to plan your next entrepreneurship club meeting with students at the local school. It’s market day in the village, so you bike home along the winding path that leads to the market, buy a pineapple, and pick up your new outfit from the tailor, just in time for a colleague’s upcoming wedding. After dinner, you sit out under the stars with the kids from next door, eating pineapple together and exchanging text messages with family back home, translating the conversation between English, French, and a local language.
You and your counterparts will collaborate with community members to promote food security through agriculture-based income generation. Working with community members to develop their capacity to manage income, expenses, and create savings plans, will strengthen household economic security and resilience .] You will also work with families to increase and diversify their household food production and consumption. The ability of families to break the generational cycle of malnutrition will allow their children to receive proper nutrition during their critical first 1,000 days, which will lay the foundation for their future ability to grow, learn, and succeed.
Benin’s economy depends on agriculture, and women as well as men farm and garden to produce food for their families and for sale. Seasonal rainfall and a subtropical climate make it possible to grow a variety of foods, yet Benin’s most vulnerable populations face challenges accessing nutrient-rich foods on a daily basis. A number of factors contribute to these challenges, including environmental stressors, declines in income levels, rising food prices, food producers lacking access to markets and quality seeds, and limited nutrient-rich foods in local markets.
To address these challenges, you will work with motivated community partners including local agricultural associations, women’s groups, secondary schools, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Your local supervisor may be the head of a technical school, NGO, or president of a local women’s co-op and you will do your work in collaboration with local Beninese counterparts. You and your counterparts will use a participatory approach to assess local knowledge, resources and needs, and to identify the most appropriate activities to address local food security challenges. These activities may include:
• Promoting weather-resilient/bio-intensive gardening techniques.
• Co-teaching food transformation and preservation techniques to increase income earned from harvested crops
• Coaching women’s groups and youth clubs on entrepreneurship
• Working with individuals and community groups on basic accounting, feasibility studies, marketing strategies, business models, and savings and credit programs
• Organizing cooking demonstrations and trainings on nutrition and diversified diets to improve infant and child health
• Planting community and school gardens
Peace Corps is committed to addressing environmental challenges, and you will support the Benin government’s promotion of sustainable farming practices as part of their efforts to achieve national food security, focusing on methods that increase productivity and strengthen environmental adaptation and resilience.
In addition to your primary work, you may also work on secondary projects that meet community needs, such as an English club, youth leadership clubs, or malaria prevention activities.
Required Skills
Qualified candidates will have an expressed interest in working in agriculture and one or more of the following criteria:
• Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Science degree in any field
OR
• 5 years' professional work experience
Desired Skills
The most competitive candidates will have one or more of the following:
• An expressed interest in working with youth, women’s groups, and grassroots level organizations that focus on agricultural projects to increase food security.
• Experience and/or interest in vegetable gardening, plant nursery work/management, tree planting, and small animal husbandry.
• Associate's or bachelor’s degree in agricultural studies.
• Basic skills and/or interest in business management, entrepreneurship, marketing, and accounting.
• Experience in program management and leadership.
•Experience working with youth.
Living Conditions
Training
You don't need to be a farmer, gardener, or a food security expert to be successful in this role. Your intercultural competence, desire to learn, flexibility, humility, interest in languages, and collaborative spirit will be key to working successfully with your community. You will do all your work with Beninese counterparts, and you will have three months of intensive in Benin to help you build the language skills and competencies needed to work effectively in your community. During training, you will live with a Beninese host family in a rural community. Training will focus on gardening, food security, basic business management, agricultural extension skills, and facilitation skills. You will gain proficiency in French and a local language, learn to navigate the cultures of Benin, take care of your physical and mental health, and maintain your safety and security. You will spend a week visiting the community where you will live and work for the next two years. During the second half of training, you will practice co-facilitating trainings in French. After successfully meeting the requirements, you will be sworn in as a Volunteer and will move to your new community to start work.
Living Conditions
Please see the Benin Living Conditions section of the website for information about:
• Communications
• Languages
• Housing and Site Location
• Food and Diet
• Transportation
• Social Activities
• Professionalism, Dress, Behavior
Dress & Appearance
Beninese people love fashionable clothes, in conservative styles that cover shoulders, knees, cleavage, and everything between. As a community member, your appearance and behavior will be judged by Benin’s cultural norms, and you will be expected to follow them. Many Volunteers love buying fabric in the market and having clothes made in local styles. It is hard to overdress or be overly neat in Benin, as your appearance reflects your respect for the people around you. Long hair, braids, cornrows, locs, and long beards on men are unusual. All men are encouraged to adjust to the local style for hair and facial hair (low cut/short/well-trimmed). Many female Volunteers wear their hair short, pulled back, or in braids or locs. All Volunteers should keep their hair clean, neat and well groomed, in keeping with local cultural expectations. Visible body piercings or tattoos are less common in Benin and may attract unwanted attention, so Volunteers may choose to conceal them in professional settings. Please refer to Living Conditions and Packing Guidance online for more details.
Curious about Benin?
Check out 'Stories From Benin' and 'Projects in Benin' on our website.
The documentary High on the Hog features beautiful footage of Benin and discusses links between Beninese and African American food and history in episode 1. The Woman King is a fictional depiction of the historic female Agodjie warriors of the Dahomey Kingdom, which is part of present-day Benin. You will also find many other articles, books, and media online about Benin.
Language Skills Additional Information
Benin is a fascinating country for language lovers. You will leave Benin with proficiency in French as well as skills in one of Benin’s local languages. French is the official language of the Beninese educational and governmental system, and most Beninese people who speak French also speak one or more of Benin’s 50+ local languages, such as Fon, Mina, Adja, Bariba, Yoruba, Idaatcha, Tchabe, Fufulde, Mahi, Nagot, or Ife.
Learning French is essential for successful Volunteer service in this country of many languages. You will likely also need to reach a certain proficiency level in a local language, as local languages are used more than French in many rural communities where not everyone speaks French. You will use French to communicate with some of your colleagues and with school groups, but learning a local language will help you connect more directly with other community members, particularly with women, who may not have finished school and may not speak French.
If you have little or no background in French, you are strongly encouraged to take a French course or make a commitment to self‐study prior to arrival in Benin in order to prepare for your life and work.
You will need to start using French for basic communications within days of arriving in Benin, so the more you know in advance, the better. You will live with a host family for most of your initial twelve weeks of training in Benin, an experience which will immerse you in an authentic language and culture learning environment, however it is important to recognize that most families in Benin mainly speak a local language within their family, and French is not likely to be their first language. Peace Corps Benin has dedicated Language and Cross-Culture Facilitators (LCFs) who will teach you French and start introducing you to local languages during your training program. In addition, you will be supported throughout your service by a full-time Language & Culture Coordinator who will support your progress in French and local language. Peace Corps Benin will provide you with resources for your continued language learning throughout your first year of service, including identifying and training a language tutor in the community where you will live and work during your service.
Couples Comments
Benin is happy to accommodate heterosexual couples, as long as each person is in a different sector program. If you are applying as a couple, your partner must qualify and apply for either:
Community Health Promoter
OR
Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) Teacher
During the 12-week Pre-Service Training, couples will live and train in separate villages. Couples will see each other once a week during core curriculum days (joint sector training days) where all trainees will participate in full group training sessions. Once at their permanent site, couples will live in the same house and will work in the same community.
Going through the Peace Corps experience as a couple poses unique opportunities and challenges, and success will require trust, confidence, and communication. There will be times when you will both need each other’s support. Understand that you will need to put in an extra effort to be an ally to your partner. Although you will not be able to eliminate many of these challenges for each other, they can be coped with and overcome with time, patience, and a most importantly a good sense of humor.
Language Requirements Information
There are no pre-requisite language requirements for this position.
Environmental Adaptation and Resilience Activities (Public Information)
As an Agriculture Volunteer, you will be trained on best practices for smallholder agriculture to improve household food security and nutrition and adapt to a changing and uncertain environmental context. As the impacts of environmental degradation and unsustainable natural resource management practices become more evident, the social, economic, and environmental contexts that smallholder farmers operate within will continue to change. This will add to the challenges of smallholder farming, particularly for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities.
As an Agriculture Volunteer, you will be trained to support food security and livelihood improvement while increasing community resilience and adaptation to global change through your activities. These activities will:
• Promote the adoption of improved, appropriate, and adaptive agricultural practices and technologies that increase productivity, including practices that:
• Improve soil health and promote circularity of on-farm organic waste
• Reflect indigenous knowledge of nature-based solutions and
• Preserve and enhance forests, biodiversity, and ecosystem services.
• Build and strengthen household resilience by integrating and diversifying existing and new agriculture-related income-generating opportunities
• Improve household nutrition, particularly that of the most vulnerable household members
