Beneficiaries of Care Ghana ‘Women for Change’ project, has described the project as a practical empowerment initiative, which has helped transformed their livelihoods and improved their economic status.
According to the beneficiaries, most of them women, the project had supported them to diversify their incomes, improve household nutrition and build community resilience.
The five-year Women for Change (October 2020-September 2025) project, which was implemented with financial support from MARS WRIGLEY and partners, focused on four pillars to economically empower women and transform their livelihoods to enable them contribute to household incomes and community development.
The pillars were financial inclusion, entrepreneurship development, gender equity and healthy families.
A total of 27,377 people, made up of 22,208 women and 5,169 men, from 506 communities in seven regions of Ghana, participated in the project.
The regions were Western, Western north, Bono and Ahafo, Ashanti, Eastern and Central regions.
The fulcrum of the project, which was the formation of Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs), served as the key transformative financial engine, which has helped linked over 121 out of the 1,158 VSLAs formed, to financial institutions in the beneficiary districts and communities.
Ms Ellen Sedziafa, Project Manager, giving highlights of the impact of the project at a close-out stakeholder engagement in Kumasi, said the VSLAs mobilized and saved a total of $ 9.2 million in the five year period, of which, $7.2 million was disbursed across the groups.
She said through the financial literacy and entrepreneurial training programmes, the women now had easy access to credits to establish additional businesses and improve their farms.
The gender equity and leadership training had helped improve women participation in decision making and leadership both in their households and communities, while the healthy families’ initiative was improving the nutrition of women and their families.
Ms Aseye Nutsukpui, Public Affairs Director of MARS WRIGLEY, said the objective of the company was to improve the livelihoods and sustainability of people in its operational areas.
She commended the participants for embracing the project in their communities and said it would help improve on their livelihoods.
