About 200 women at Kpugi, a farming community in the Gushegu Municipality in the Northern Region, are to benefit from a US $75,000 shea butter processing facility.
The facility, with a milling machine, an office, a water supply system and a shed is to create economic opportunities, improve standards of living of the women who process shea nuts and also help boost shea butter production in the country.
The construction of the facility was facilitated by Grameen Ghana, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), with funding from the Government of Japan under its Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects (GGHSP).
Women in the area, who are into sheanut picking and processing used to use a traditional method which was tedious and time-consuming.
The Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Japan in Ghana, Mr Hiromoto Oyama, says, the Shea butter business is an opportunity to better improve the lives of the women and also to empower them economically, “As the sheabutter business is one of the few employment opportunities available to women in northern Ghana, this processing centre is expected to help advance the living standard and empowerment of women in this community”.
He noted that the project would go a long way to help build a strong foundation to promote the “Ghana Beyond Aid” agenda, through livelihood growth and empowerment of women who would be essential contributors towards the national agenda.
According to Mr Oyama, the governments of Ghana and Japan had been collaborating in various areas of development, which demonstrated the fruits of close relations between the two countries over the past years.
The Executive Director of Grameen Ghana, Mr Mohammed Al-Hassan Adams, assured that the facility to ensure that it is used for the intended purpose. He explained that the main vision of his outfit is to ensure food security and empower women economically and also to alleviate poverty among rural women.
The Member of Parliament for the Gushegu Constituency and Deputy Tourism Minister, Dr Ziblim Iddi, commended Japan Embassy and Grameen Ghana for the gesture, saying the initiative would help enhance the livelihood of women in Kpugi and its surrounding communities.
He pledged a seed capital of GH¢6,000 for the women groups to enable them to start operating the facility.
Some woman in an interview with Citi News expressed their gratitude to the Japan Embassy for providing them with the facility.
“We are able to pay our children fees, buy new clothes and also support our husbands. Poverty used to be high in our community but now we can also be like other women elsewhere.”
Jobs have also been created not only for the women but the men too. An operator of the grinding mill, AfaMusah expressed happiness as he is able to take care of the family.
“I am now happy because, from this job, I got a wife and l am to look after her. I buy food stuffs for the family from the money I am paid every month”.
Hiromoto Oyama was enskinned by the chief of Kpugi as the development chief for the area.
