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Development Sector: Women In Development
Women in Northern Ghana
Most rural women in Northern Ghana have not had the opportunity to go to school. Today there are still many villages where not one girl has gone past the grade six level of the local primary school. There are no job opportunities unless the women move to cities or larger centres and available work even there is usually carrying heavy loads of goods from place to place. There is no social security system. As young women they assist in their father’s farm, carry water, carry firewood, look after younger siblings and help with all the other domestic chores. They marry young and it is rare to find a woman that has borne less than five children. In the Northern Ghanaian and Muslim traditions, men can marry several wives and when a husband dies, he leaves as many as four widows with many dependents. Although customarily, the families are to help, often they are struggling to survive themselves and just do not have enough to share.
Janga area
When NEA first began work in the Janga area (1987), they realized that women had no voice in the community in regard to their well-being. Even in open community gatherings, women were at the back of the crowd. It was a taboo for women to sleep on beds or own a bicycle. In addition to this, older widows were sometimes accused of being witches and ostracized from the village. NEA identified the widows as the most desperately poor group in the community and organized a meeting with ten of the poorest widows. The women talked about their needs and their assets. They had physical strength and could get land. They stated their needs as food,water and medical care for themselves and their dependents as well as adequate funds to be able to send their children to school.
Activities
Land was released for the women to use for farming enterprises. Due to the poor quality of soil in the area, crops that would enrich the land (soya beans and peanuts) were chosen. Training in land preparation, composting, planting, weeding, harvesting and storage was given at the first co-operatives bi-weekly meetings. An acre of land was marked out for each woman. The land was worked, the seed was planted and the NEA agricultural technician monitored the progress.
Results
After three years, the women were able to stand on their own, meaning that they had seed for the following year, some to eat and some to sell. From the proceeds of their crop sales, many of the women started other small trading businesses. Each woman paid back the initial amount of seed to the co-op and this was given to other women who needed assistance. In addition, the co-op members farmed an acre together for emergency purposes. This program spread to fourteen villages of the Sooh Division of West Mamprusi and now over one thousand women are part of this expanding program. Activities are supervised by some of the early members of the program who were given additional training in basic administration. The women can care for themselves and their children - some have their own bicycles to ride on and their own beds to sleep on. Through their profits they have even started various other micro-enterprises such as trading commodities or food preparation for the market day. Today, the Janga women are respected in the community and are no longer on the periphery of the crowd at formal gatherings. They sit in a large group together and the chiefs have even created a special place for the women leaders to sit amongst them. No longer are the elderly women considered witches and sent away from the village. In open meetings they are confident to share their ideas with men and women alike.
Deg/South Mo Area:
Similar problems existed in the Deg and South Mo areas and in 1997, women were brought together to discuss possible solutions. Their land was good for peanut farming and they have a little longer growing season. As at the end of 2007, women in the co-op numbered over 1300. Of this number, 609 are active and the rest are on their own. 200 more women have been registered to start in 2008. Cropping peanuts helps to improve their diet and increase their income, not only from the sale of excess crops but from small-scale trading business which many women have invested their profits into. In addition the co-op members are being trained in the care of small animals and have their own animal-husbandry program. They are each given a goat and after three years, they pay back one of the offspring to the co-op which in turn is given to another woman. The animals become their ‘savings account’ and when emergencies arise they are able to sell an animal. These methods of generating income are empowering women to stand on their own feet. The co-op program is active in 33 villages (9 Deg area/24 South Mo) and women leaders continue to be trained to supervise the program in their various areas. In meetings with all the members in 2007, it was encouraging to hear the reports of their successes. Several said that they would not have been able to go for medical treatment, had it not been for this income. One widow said that she was able to purchase a small house for herself. However, to them one of their greatest achievements was that they had been able to pay the required school fees to keep their children or wards in school, many at the secondary school level. Two of our women leaders are now the community representatives in the District Assembly (local government council). They attribute their success to the co-op program which has given them the confidence to speak out and express their views in public. A highlight 2007 was their participation in the international consultation organized by SIM (funded by CIDA) which was facilitated by NEA in Carpenter. At this consultation, some of NEA’s rural women co-op leaders and women farmers addressed the high-level delegates on their program, their difficulties and their successes. It was a major milestone for GRID and NEA (who knew how dejected these women once were and how excluded they were from the decision making in their villages) to witness their confident participation in a forum of this caliber. It was a visible picture of reaching the goal of raising the status of women in their project areas.