School Lunch Programs begin February 1st

After two weeks of shopping for the Nutrition Center, Guanware Primary, and Gorug Primary, Britney delivered the last load of food to Piitanga Primary on Saturday.

Heading back to Kongo after their last day shopping: Britney with two of the mothers that will cook at Piitanga Primary (b/w and orange dresses), Rabi (pink/brown dress) and Janet (bright green) who are indispensable in coordinating the large purchases in the Bolga market. 

Once the food is measured and transferred from basins to large bags, the sheep move in to search for any spilled rice or beans.

Delivering the final load of food to Piitanga. Space in this cement building has been donated for storage. 

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38 Bicycles

Marilyn has received funding to purchase bicycles for 38 of the 170 Community Health Workers in Nabdam clinics. They frequently travel to remote homes to monitor the health status of children and pregnant women in regards to vaccinations and communicable diseases. We hope to buy more bikes in the future.

Marilyn in Bolga, loading the 38 bikes for delivery to clinics. 

Bicycles in Ghana are expensive, they average $53/bike. These are all used bikes from China.

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Scenes from a weekend

Britney has discovered she loves the cacophony of the Bolga market when she made food purchases for the Nutrition Center on Friday. This the shopping list she used, she found a 10% inflation in food costs over last year. FYI, 1 dollar equals 4.2 GH cedis.

list

Back in Kongo for the weekend for a bit of relaxation she took some photos of scenes from the village and nearby countryside:

A typical soccer “field”.

Husband and wife, dry season farmers, prepare to take tomatoes to market. Britney and Marilyn are organizing a farmer training to discuss common problems among those farmers with our foot irrigation pumps. For example insect control, composting for fertilization, and protecting crops from livestock.

Relaxing in the village:

A mother and daughters                          Girls playing a clapping/jumping game

Britney reports she is enjoying her time in Ghana and wishes they were staying longer!

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Meetings before food purchases

In the days before traveling to Bolgatanga and purchasing food, we always meet with each of the schools and the nutrition center to discuss plans for the year. In the past week Britney and Marilyn met with the staff, community elders, PTA, and cooks at each location. Today, Friday, Britney is on her first of many trips to purchase the food!

Marilyn and Britney meeting with staff and PTA at Piitanga Primary – The lunch program is just beginning this year at this school. The parents have brought some food from their farms that will be used in lunch program, in addition to the food we will purchase. This community is dedicated to educating and feeding their children. We are working to fund a new school at this site.

Some of the women who will do the cooking and clean up at Gorug school, along with the PTA president. The community grew 500 pounds of beans (worth $150) to contribute to the lunch program. The mother’s who cook are all volunteers.

This is staff, community elders, PTA, and the cooks meeting with Britney at Guanware Primary where we have provided a lunch program for many years. The students who originally started in the Guanware lunch program are now in high school.

 

 

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Yakote Women Farmers in 2018

On January 10^th, Yakote Women Farmers has an experienced crew going to Ghana: YWF President, Marilyn Schuster, along with Lisa‘s niece (Britney), and two former Peace Corps volunteers.

Marilyn working with basket weavers.

Britney

 

How we are using your donations:

To minimize undernutrition and stunting, we will expand our lunch program at a third school this year, Piitanga Primary.  This is Britney‘s second trip as a volunteer with us, she will spend nearly all her time in the markets buying food staples for the lunch programs at all three schools and for the Clinic Nutrition Center for malnourished children. The YWF food budget for this year is $9,600. Just to give you an idea of scale, this January she will buy 5,250 pounds of rice, over 4,000 pounds of white beans, as well as 8 huge baskets of dried fish, 275 liters of fresh, red palm oil, 12 buckets of dried hot peppers, and 3,000 pounds of ground cassava – all of it produced in Ghana.

In an exciting new project, we are working with another charitable organization, Framework International, to fund construction of a cement block classroom building for Piitanga Primary. Classes at Piitanga are now either outside or in a tiny, three room mud clad structure built by parents. Between our reserve funds and the funds of Framework International, we hope to construct a 6 classroom cement block structure.  A preliminary estimate shows construction costs of $40,000 for six classrooms. Believe it or not, we need to raise only $5,000 more to reach the $40,000 needed. So, YES, we do still need donations. THANKS to everyone who has already shared in making this construction possible. The families of Piitanga are so very grateful and appreciative of the opportunity for their children.

Due to a shortage of classrooms, the 1st grade class currently meets outside at Piitanga School.

Tax deductible donations can easily be made by Paypal or credit card at www.yakotewomenfarmers.org

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