Wednesday 28 August 2019

POWER Project Trains 6,277 Women in Five Regions



The   Promoting Opportunities for Women Empowerment and Rights (POWER) project, aimed at empowering vulnerable rural women in five regions of Ghana and to influence their ability to control their income has begun yielding positive results. 

In all, six thousand Two hundred and 77 women have received training and put in groups and are participating actively in their economic activities to better their living standards. 

This was disclosed at a day’s mid-term dissemination workshop held in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region. 

The five year project being implemented by Action Aid Ghana (AAG), an advocacy Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) with funding support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, begun implementation in 2016 in five regions including Volta, Brong-Ahafo, Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions. 

It was also aimed at empowering more rural women to practice climate resilient sustainable agriculture, access to markets and other productive resources.

In an interview with GBConline, the Documentation, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of the POWER, Ms Priscilla Asangalisah, explained that, the initial  aim of the project was to empower 6,000 vulnerable rural women and influence their ability to control their income by practicing climate resilient sustainable agriculture, access to markets and other productive resources.  

Ms. Asangalisah said the research indicated that, the 6277 women exceeding the initial of 6,000 women targeted by the project while 93 percent of the targeted women reported increased skills and are now confidence in demanding for their rights and reporting cases of violence, which is more than the 70 percent set target. 

The Documentation Officer who indicated further that  the project seeks to promote economic livelihood opportunities for women and to advocate for reduction and redistribution of work burden particularly Unpaid Care Work (UCW)   on women,  stated that  the findings   revealed that many  households, communities and other stakeholders had now placed high  premium on  Women’s UCW and in some cases UCW  redistributed. 

In the area of access and control of resources by women particularly land to undertake agriculture activities as well as women actively participating in local government activities recorded 48 percent and 55 percent instead of the targets of 50 percent and 60 percent expected to be achieved at the end of the project in 2020. 

The report stated that in some communities, due to the project, childcare centers were built where women   could leave their children there and have ample time to carry out their farming activities to generate income for their households. 

Whilst indicating  that the research was necessary because it would enable the project  to identify challenges confronting it  and  to find ways  of addressing the challenges, the Documentation Officer  said it  would also  enable the project  to measures its  achievements so as to enable them device measures to sustain the gains made. 

The report stated further that, in some communities, due to the project, childcare centers were built where women could leave their children there and have ample time to carry out their farming activities to generate income for their households.



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