25 Women from two regions upgrade skills
Twenty-five women who are into farming, soap making, pottery and basket weaving, from the Upper East and West regions, have been equipped with skills to enable them to market their products more effectively both in Ghana and in neighbouring Burkina Faso.
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The women, some of whom are living in communities close to Burkina Faso, have now acquired skills in customer relations, packaging, rebranding, redesigning and identifying marketing centres.
Project
The initiative was under a project dubbed ‘Women's Leadership for Economic Empowerment and Food Security in Ethiopia, Ghana and Zambia' (EMPOWER)’. It is being supported by Global Affairs, Canada, which aims at contributing to the reduction of poverty in Ethiopia, Ghana and Zambia.
Led by St Francis Xavier University’s Coady International Institute (StFX/Coady), the programme works closely with three African partners - the Organisation for Women in Self Employment (WISE) in Ethiopia, the University for Development Studies (UDS) and the Centre for Indigenous Knowledge and Organisational Development (CIKOD) in Ghana, and the Women for Change (WfC) in Zambia.
The project is aimed at promoting leadership of rural women and their organisations to address food security and sustainable economic livelihood issues, which are critical and interlocking issues that affect their lives.
In Ghana, the UDS in the northern part of the country is partnering with CIKOD to build the capacities of over 500 women and men in the country and at the international level. This is done through working in close collaboration with five other partner organisations, namely Professional Network, North and Rural Women Farmers Association of Ghana North (RUWFAG North) in the Upper West Region, and Centre for Cosmovision and indigenous Knowledge (CECIK), the Widows and Orphans Movement (WOM) and Sirigu Women's Organisation of Pottery and Art (SWOPA) in the Upper East Region.
Training
Explaining the rationale behind the training programme at Pusu Namongo in the Talensi District in the Upper East Region, the Women Economic Empowerment Programme Manager of CIKOD, Madam Elham Mumuni, said the training was to help the women identify internal and external markets for their products.
She stated that the women had been taught to put in place quality control measures at each level, saying "marketing starts from the production stage to when the product finally hits the marketing centres."
Madam Mumuni further indicated that the women who are into farming were for instance taught when to plan their plant and when to sell their farm produce so as to rake in the needed revenue to avoid making losses.
Beneficiaries
Three beneficiaries of the training programme, Madam Stella Naab, Margaret Kasise and Margaret Ayamga, acknowledged the importance of the training. They said it had enabled them to know how to deal politely with their customers, maintain personal hygiene, prepare food under hygienic conditions, and time their respective farming activities to rake in more revenue.
They expressed optimism that with the knowledge and skills they had acquired, they would be able to improve on their businesses both in Ghana and in neighbouring countries such as Burkina Faso.