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Boufoum Forest Reserve being rehabilitated

Fifty hectares  of the degraded Boufoum Forest Reserve  in the Sekyere Kumawu District in the Ashanti Region  is being rehabilitated through planting and nurturing of teak to mitigate  the adverse climate change.

A total of 210  people, made up of 100 males and 110 women, from the nearby Bohankra community,  have been engaged in the plantation, earning between GH¢250.00 and GH¢1,300.00 per person, since work began in March, 2012.

Work on the teak plantation is expected to continue until December, 2015, to enable beneficiaries to earn sustained income.

A CHPS compound has also been constructed by the  Asekyerewa community.

The cost of the two projects is estimated at GH¢314,020.00.

Beneficiaries of the Ghana Social Opportunities Project (GSOP) in the Sekyere Afram Plains and Sekyere Kumawu districts in the Ashanti Region have appealed for extension of the project when it ends in 2015, saying their livelihoods have improved significantly since the project  started in July, 2011.

GSOP is situated in the social protection sector and seeks to further the objectives of the national social protection strategy, by strengthening the implementation of two key social protection interventions, the ongoing Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), and the newly introduced Labour Intensive Public Works (LIPW).

The vision of GSOP is to enable the graduation of the very poor households out of poverty, by exploiting the synergies between programmes and strengthening their complimentariness.

A  visit to the Boufoum Forest Reserve rehabilitation project at Bohankra and Mamprusi-Mamprusi junction feeder road project to ascertain the progress of work and how it had impacted on the livelihoods of the beneficiaries revealed enthusiastic beneficiaries using simple tools on the road project.

The beneficiaries said due to the construction of the road, vehicles now easily plied the road and carted foodstuffs to the market.

They also said they used the wages to buy farm implements and fertiliser for their farming activities and enrol their children in school.

At the plantation project site at Bohankra, there was a long queue of people being registered by officials from the district assembly to be engaged to work on the plantation.

The Regional Co-ordinator of GSOP,  Mr Charles Nayram, told the Daily Graphic  that the project was on course towards achieving its goals of improving the lives of the rural poor.

On account of the benefits derived by the local people from participating in the project, the people are clamouring for the project life to be extended when it ends in 2015 and more communities brought on board in order to ensure that poverty is significantly reduced and their socio-economic status improved.

By Joseph Kyei-Boateng/Daily Graphic/Ghana

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