Rural women build capacity on rice, sheanut production
The Net Organisation for Youth Empowerment and Development (NOYED-Ghana), a non-governmental organization operating in the north of Ghana, has built the capacity of rural women on the cultivation of rice and sheanut in the Nasia community in the West Mamprusi district.
They were equipped with knowledge and skills in rice and shea nut processing to enable them improve their incomes in order to help cater for their families, especially the education of the girl-child.
Mr Alhassan Abdulai Iddi, Executive Director of NOYED-Ghana, noted that the training provided positive opportunities that existed in the rice and sheanut industries and the need for the women farmers to take advantage of to enhance their lives.
He said NOYED aims at promoting girl-child education in deprived areas as well as improving the livelihood of the vulnerable.
The workshop, he said, also helped to improve the knowledge of the women in the value chain of rice and sheanut processing.
Mr Iddi assured the participants of NOYED-Ghana’s continuous support to the women groups, especially those who take the education of their children more seriously in line with the interest of the Voluntary Service Overseas and Comic Relief, donors of the programme.
Mr Issifu Seidu Haruna, a facilitator of the workshop, indicated that there were about 1,060 women in the district, who had so far benefited from such initiatives. He added that it had boosted their skills and knowledge in income generating activities.
Mr Haruna observed that lack of capital for women to promote their businesses had been a bottleneck towards their progress and appealed to financial institutions to extend their services to rural areas to ensure that vulnerable persons benefited from them.
Madam Ramatu Mahama, a participant at the workshop lamented over access to capital, which she said had been a major hindrance to many women groups in the area and called on government and other NGOs to assist them improve the quality of their produce.
Source: GNA