100 women will learn about and practice organic farming and business skills through training-on-the-job, equipment and mentoring. To achieve implementable solutions, trainees are organised in existing and new farmer groups. The project will help them become more effective and sustainable by increasing their production and income, ensuring food security.

Beneficiary communities are Kpeve, Abrubruwa, Brewaniase and Fankyenekor, all in the Nkwanta South Municipal Assembly of the Oti region. The region is one of Ghana’s poorest areas. Nearly half the households are food insecure, and over 33% of people live below the national poverty line of less than USD 0.70 a day. It also has one of the lowest literacy rates, with 75% of the region being non-literate.

Farming is the only source of making a living for the women in these communities. We see that small-scale farmers lack the basic knowledge on how to increase their production and income, using outmoded farming practices like monocropping. The crops they do cultivate (maize, groundnut, and cassava) provide limited market opportunity.

None of the women in these locations has engaged in nutritious and in-demand vegetable production. Furthermore, in non-productive periods, women have no entrepreneurial skills to increase their incomes. Moreover, they have limited access to land and are vulnerable to discriminatory attitudes, hindering them from doing business. The project addresses both these problems.

The Vulnerable Aid Organisation strongly believes that when given the opportunity, every woman has the power, the means, and the information to make her own life-decisions. She is then able to overcome the obstacles standing between her and a healthy, productive future.

100 women, about 30% aged between 18-24 and often single mothers, will produce their own vegetables for consumption and make more profit from produce sales.

In 1 year, we expect their productivity to increase by 70%, with 2-3 business opportunities providing extra income, especially in non-productive periods.

This takes them and their families out of extreme poverty. 500 family members will benefit from increased healthy food intake and income for basic needs like food, education and health care.

They will inspire other women from the project and neighbouring communities to start using similar strategies. This will create increasing numbers of food-secure families and communities.

Ultimately, in terms of women rights, the project gives women greater financial independence. In turn, this will lead to reductions in domestic violence for women in our communities.

The budget for the following activities is GHS 62,042 (or €8,319). The donation will be used to:

• Stage 1: Farm adventure

Trainees cultivate farmland and learn new skills like crop production, storage, fertilizer measures, pesticide labels, and marketing. They are also taught bookkeeping, planning, teamwork, responsibility, communication, money management and polyculture. With this innovative knowledge, they will be able to cultivate enough vegetables in high demand at open markets. Costs include mobilisation and baseline survey, training of group leaders, allowances for trainers, training activities and 100 cutlasses and hoes. (GHS 26,500)

• Stage 2: Business Idea Development

Each trainee applies the newly acquired knowledge and skills to identify needs in the community, design business projects to meet these needs, and organise their findings in individual business plans. Costs include workshops to guide farmers on businesses, allowances for resource persons and refreshment. This would be done in groups. (GHS 7,600)

• Stage 3: Skills training

Trainees and other interested groups will be taught how to make liquid soap, fascinators (hand-crafted huts usually used during weddings and religious activities), sanitizers and local drinks to help increase their daily income during the dry or off-season. Costs include purchase of training materials and allowances for training facilitators. (GHS22,780)

• Stage 4: Business launch

After completing the programme, trainees will be mentored to start up their business with vegetable seedlings. In addition, some of the money earned from product sales can be saved/invested. (GHS 3,010)

• 5% to iMPACT direct for facilitating direct donations to local solutions (which helps to cover costs of the website, promotion, and proposal writing, costs of financial services, and the NGO support).

Own contributions:

To ensure sustainability beyond the project’s life span, we are training individuals from each of the three villages (Abrubruwa, Fankynekor, Brewaniase and Kpeve) to become literacy facilitators. Participants are taught literacy skills relevant to agriculture such as crop production, storage, fertilizer measures, pesticide labels, and marketing. They then, in turn, deliver the literacy course to groups of 15 over the course of 8 months.