The Organization for Indigenous Initiatives and Sustainability (ORGIIS Ghana), a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), has officially handed over two warehouse projects to the chiefs and people of Kayoro Baliu in the Kasena Nankana West District and Doninga in the Builsa South District of the Upper East Region.
The NGO commissioned an Ultramodern Shea-nut warehouse at Kayoro community in the Kasena Nankana West District on Saturday, June 22, 2024. The warehouse includes a processing facility and a mechanized borehole attached to it.
Later that same day, the team proceeded to Doninga community in the Builsa South District and handed over a warehouse to the chiefs and people to be used as a Shea-nut storage facility.
Speaking at a ceremony to officially commission the facilities, Mr. Peter Amina, who spoke on behalf of the Director of ORGIIS GHANA, commended the chiefs of the two beneficiary communities for providing an acre of land each for the two projects in their communities.
He noted that the two facilities, under the ECONOBIO II project with funding support from NOE, are part of ORGIIS GHANA’s income generation strategy for the CREMAs in SKGK and Bulkawe communities, and to empower the women cooperatives in the two beneficiary communities.
Mr. Amina added that the two communities were chosen for the projects due to the popularity they had gained in Shea-nut Picking and Shea-butter production, as well as the commitment of the women cooperatives.
He appealed to the community members to take good care of the facilities to serve their intended purposes.
Mr. Abdul Wahid, who represented NOE, urged the beneficiary communities, especially the 15-member committee in charge of the facilities, to take good care of the warehouses.
He appealed to the committee to create a bank account in the name of the facilities so that they will be saving part of the storage fees for the maintenance and sustainability of the facilities.
Mr. Wahid used the opportunity to present the warehouse management plan and other relevant documents to the committee and urged them to be proactive and innovative to generate more income from the facilities.
The warehouse management plan document has outlined the revenue-sharing scheme. In the management plan, the beneficiary communities, CREMA, and the women cooperatives are going to get their share from the revenue that will be generated from the warehouse storage fees.
The document further explains that the cooperatives could also store their farm produce and the produce of other people in the community at a fee to serve as a source of revenue for the cooperatives.
He also encouraged the women cooperatives to work hard by picking more Shea nuts to make the aim of the project realized.
Shea nuts that are collected from local shea trees within the CREMA designated communities will be kept in these warehouses.
The Chiefs of the two communities thanked ORGIIS GHANA and its implementing partners for building the facilities in their communities and asked for additional support for the communities to ease the suffering of their people.
The NGO (ORGIIS GHANA) has its financial support from a France-based NGO (NOE) to put up the two warehouse facilities in the beneficiary communities.
Source: Oyerepafmonline.com/Edmond Kwaching Agwaazeh, Upper East Regional Correspondent