Food security initiative launched for rural Wa women
Greater Rural Opportunities for Women (GROW) an innovative food security project for rural women has been launched at Wechiau in the Wa West District.
The two-year project is under the auspices of the Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) with local facilitation from the Community Aid for Rural Development (CARD).
Speaking at the launch Mr. Emmanuel Akansighe, MEDA Wa Area Manager, said the Association viewed women as the bread winners of most families in the area, hence, its decision to focus its first project in Ghana on women to enhance their capacity to grow more food.
According to him, MEDA believed strongly in creating business solutions to poverty and appealed to the women to come out with such creative business ideas for MEDA to support them.
Mr. Akansighe urged the women to let the project be a unifying factor for all of them, saying that it would position them better to derive the maximum benefits it presented.
He told the women that the success of the project would largely depend on their effective participation in the implementation process and appealed to them to psyche their minds towards grabbing the opportunity to better their lots.
Mr. Livinus Balog, Agriculture Technical Specialist at the MEDA Wa Area Office, said under the project, women would be supported to cultivate soya beans which apart from its numerous economic values could also withstand the weather and is easy to cultivate.
He said though the focus of the project was on women, the men also had a crucial role to play by way of releasing productive lands to their wives and supporting them throughout the cultivation period.
Mr. Hudu Alhassan, CARD Programme Coordinator, thanked MEDA for choosing them to partner them in the implementation of the project.
He said he believed that at the end of the two-year period, the project would bring hope, prosperity and smiles on the faces of rural women across all beneficiary communities.
He said the project was targeting about 1,500 direct and 6,000 indirect beneficiaries.
Naa Alhaji Imoro Gomah, the Chief of Wechiau, assured the people that land would be released to the women to undertake the project and that all men whose wives were part of the project would support their wives.
Source: GNA