The Widows and Orphans Movement (WOM), a non-governmental organisation in partnership with Actionaid Ghana has trained women groups on agribusiness management in Nabdam and Talensi Districts of the Upper East Region.
The over 300 women, drawn from six communities of the two districts were mostly petty traders, farmers and Shea butter processors. They were equipped with skills in record-keeping, profit and loss determination and marketing.
The communities included Sakoti, Zanlerigu, and Gane-Asonge of the Nabdam District and Baare, Balungu, and Sakpal-Tengre of the Talensi District.
The training aimed at boosting their capacities and record-keeping techniques to enable them to track their businesses and reach new customers through promotion of their products.
The women were also led through a practical demonstration on how to sustain and expand their businesses through proper packaging, with technical assistance from the Business Advisory Centers of the Ghana Enterprise Agency in the two districts.
Ms. Nancy Awinbisa Amiziah, a Project Officer with the Women and Orphans Movement speaking to the women at the training, noted that the administration of a business extends beyond daily sales to the capacity of maintaining records, monitoring financial gains and losses, advertising the products and identifying an appropriate market for the products.
Ms. Amiziah emphasised that this was crucial for sustaining and expanding businesses and that made it prudent to provide the women with the technical assistance they needed to expand their businesses and provide for their families.
To evaluate the success of this training, Ms. Amiziah said “We are going to track the success of this through our daily interaction with the women by constantly reminding them to incorporate the skills learned into their businesses. So that in a month’s time we can track the short-term impact, and in a year’s time we will be able to get success stories coming from them using this knowledge that we have impacted on them,” she added .
The Head of the Nabdam District Business Advisory Center of the Ghana Enterprise Agency, Michael Azubire, urged the women to take their record-keeping seriously to enable them to track their debtors and the progress of their businesses.
Mrs. Bamohimah Tibil, a participant, while expressing her joy over the skills acquired, expressed gratitude to the organisations, adding that it was an eye-opener.
“This workshop has really exposed us to a lot of things that we didn’t know and has now even confirmed to us why we were always having problems with our customers because we usually don’t record items purchased on credit, and whenever it came to payment, we were always having problems,” she stated.
“I think going forward it is now important for us to know our debtors and how much they owe us by taking records”. She added.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1MHz|Gilbert Azeem Tiroog|Ghana
