A major component of the Women Innovation for Sustainable Enterprises (WISE) project is alleviating poverty and ensuring economic empowerment for women. The project has, since its inception, provided step-down training, innovative saving methods, and business and entrepreneurial strategy training, among others, to equip women smallholder farmers and aggregators to transform their farming activities and livelihoods into profitable agribusinesses. Through start-up support, a lot of women have been able to secure businesses for themselves, while others have transformed already existing businesses to meet wider market standards.

Over the years, a few of these beneficiaries have become exceptional entrepreneurs, and some of them have participated in competitions where they pitched their businesses in the country’s capital. These women have been selected to serve as mentees and advocates in their communities. To ensure that a ripple effect is seen across the districts, these mentees have been allowed to engage in some savings groups within the Kumbungu and Tolon districts, sharing their entrepreneurial journeys and insights.

This experience-sharing is not just about networking; it is a platform for growth, empowerment, and learning new strategies to navigate the business world. They also engaged them in proper savings strategies that can be used in transforming their businesses, setting goals, and how to achieve them. The purpose of using mentees for this engagement was to ensure that, the rural women understood they could also succeed if they put their minds to their businesses. And to also provide them with a sense of hope and boost their morale, knowing that people from amongst them have been able to go this far.

To ensure the sustainability of the project, we are aiming at getting as many advocates and mentees as possible within each community of implementation and equipping them with the needed skills to support and uplift others. The aim of URBANET is not just to support and provide relief to an entire community within our districts of influence, but to ensure that a considerable number of women are effectively transformed and serve as ambassadors in their communities.

Zoggu is one of the 28 communities under the Nanton district where the GROW2 project is executed within the Northern region by URBANET Ghana. It has been identified as one of the communities with much potential considering its vibrant women smallholder farmers and aggregators and their zeal to embrace change. Through the project, many initiatives under the market systems component and gender transformative approaches have been implemented in the community, which have seen great progress.

Through the continuous support from URBANET Ghana and the GROW2 project, the community is slowly becoming a hub for serious agribusinesses owned by women, gender rights advocacy, and several other transformational development initiatives. 

As the sponsor of the GROW2 project, Global Affairs Canada (GAC) has shown immense interest in the project and its progress. Through the major implementor, MEDA Ghana, it pays working visits to its Key Facilitating Partners (KFPs) to measure the impact of the project on clients (beneficiaries).

URBANET Ghana hosted the Canadian High Commissioner to Ghana, Martine Moreau, the Senior Development Officer at GAC, Mr. Majeed Mohammed, and a team from MEDA Ghana in the Zoggu community. The visit was meant to interact with the women under the project, especially those who could acquire the various technologies under the project’s Price Discount Scheme (PDS) and members of the Gender Module Family (GMF) activity. Most of them shared their experience, the benefits they have derived from the project, and how it has transformed their households and businesses.

The High Commissioner, through the GESI officer of URBANET, interacted with some women who own tricycles and groundnut shellers acquired through the project. She found interest in how they were able to acquire such pieces of machinery and how well it is helping them. She expressed her satisfaction at how far the women have come and are working hard to transform themselves and their children.

Through the project’s market system and gender transformative approaches, many of them have improved their relationships with spouses and children, and have attained alternative income sources in addition to what they did previously, which has improved their financial status. The project intends to reduce poverty, if not end it, amongst women through business and market approaches. It seeks to create as many women in the agribusiness sector as possible, and URBANET, through its project officers across its Zones of Influence, is ensuring that it is achieved. 

The WISE project is a partner project with Plan International Ghana, and as an implementing partner, URBANET accounts to not only its beneficiaries and stakeholders but partners as well. Given this, URBANET has had a close relationship with Plan International Ghana over the years and has worked jointly to ensure the success of the project. Despite working with the northern branch of Plan International Ghana, our relationship extends beyond the branch office.

URBANET had the pleasure of hosting the recently appointed Country Director of Plan International Ghana, Constant Tchona, and some team members from the regional branch, in some of its WISE project implementing communities, as part of his visit to the regional branch. He engaged with the project beneficiaries in the Kumbungu district, sharing his life journey and as well immersing himself in their stories and experiences. From heartwarming interactions with the VSLA groups at the Kpilo community to monitoring the WISE project Safe Spaces for Children at the Tibung community, his visit was filled with impactful moments.

The team also visited the Voggu community, where the Country Director closely monitored our women-friendly solar hub and interacted with the hub agents and some women entrepreneurs. The resilience and determination of these women entrepreneurs left a lasting impression, showcasing the power of sustainable initiatives in driving change.

Gender Model Family (GMF) is a programme that encourages and gives husbands the knowledge and tools to live equally with their wives and to ensure that their boys and girls are given the same opportunities to develop their potential. It influences how couples and partners share household chores, how family members communicate, and how parents interact with their children.

Urbanet, in partnership with MEDA as part of the GESI component of the GROW2 project, organized the GMF annual summit. The summit began with the administration of criteria to help select the best practicing model.  Each couple was chosen from the Zoggu and Jegun community based on their demonstrable examples.

Objectives.

•  Awarded best-practicing couples.
•  Best practicing GMF couples shared experiences to motivate other couples.
• Stakeholders’ views on how to sustain the GMF concept.

In attendance, were two GESI officers for URBANET and ACDEPT, the GESI team at MEDA, staff of SEND Ghana, and other key stakeholders including gender desk officers, planning officers, social welfare/ community development officers etc.

These selected couples were allowed to share their experiences on how best they are practicing the GMF concept and how well it’s helping to transform the lives of their household and its cascading effect in the entire community. Some of the experiences shared include but are not limited to helping reduce unpaid care for women and girls, improving communication among couples, help to boost the economic activities of women.  A framed family picture was presented to the selected couples as a form of motivation and encouragement as they continue to be of good standard and serve as role models.

The Gender Module Family program is currently running in most of the operating zones of Urbanet Ghana. Through our GESI coordinator and project officers, as well as projects, we are putting in place measures to ensure gender equity within households to reduce SGBVs, and unpaid care work, increase opportunities for women and create a healthy environment for women and children to thrive.

The Empower project is a youth-focused project that intends to provide support for young people within the Northern Regions through transformative development approaches. The project commenced in 2021 with training on soap making for young girls within the tamale metropolis and has since provided support for them through engagements and exposure to a wide market, trade fairs, and conferences related to business entrepreneurship. After a successful implementation in 2021, the project had a selection process for its second cohort, this time in modern transformative beekeeping for young people within the Northern and Savannah regions.

Two sets of trainings were held for sixty selected participants, thirty each in the West Gonja district of the Savannah region and Nanumba North district within the Northern region. These trainings were meant to introduce participants to modern transformative beekeeping as a tool for ensuring economic and personal development as well as a form of contribution towards climate action. They went through intensive practical training for four days to gain in-depth knowledge as far as beekeeping is concerned.

Participants were taken through indigenous beekeeping methods and their effects on the environment, as well as the bees and other animals, and how necessary it is to adopt contemporary beekeeping methods. Participants with previous knowledge and experience in beekeeping shared their experiences and how they saw contemporary methods to be better after a few comparisons and discussions.

“Previously, I used a lighted torch or dry grass to derive bees away from my beehive anytime it was time to harvest honey. I realized most of the bees died as a result of the fire, and on some occasions, I forgot to turn off the flames before leaving the forest,” a participant attested.

The participants were allowed to explore beekeeping areas with the communities in which the training took place. In West Gonja, they had the privilege of visiting the Damango Agric College, where they were shown some beehives and given brief lessons on beekeeping and maintaining hives by the Head of the Animal Science Department. They were also provided with beehives, smokers, and protective gear after the training as start-ups for their beekeeping.