Vingving Lang- yiri women making a difference

Thirty women from Vinving came together to form the Vinving Lang-yiri women’s group in 2006 to actively liberate themselves from the poverty and deprivation which confronts them on a daily basis, by cultivating food for sale. 

As a result they have also been able to pay the examination fees of two girls from their community who were attending the Nursing Training College in Jirapa.

One of the girls, Mary Bereawala, is now the community health nurse. She commented on her achievement:  “The support I received from the women’s group in my community has motivated me to come back to serve the community.

“I want to be a role model to the young girls in the community by helping them to stay in school."

"I am the youth representative on COMBAT [Community Based Anti-Violence Team] and I shall do everything possible with my colleague COMBAT members to ensure that a safe school environment is created for girls to be in school.”

The community is currently in discussion with the District Directorate of Ghana health service to get her stationed in Jirapa in order that she can undertake outreach programmes to attend to pregnant women and children from her community.

Improvement has been seen already, with maternal and child mortality reducing from an average of 3 per year to zero in February 2010 according to available statistics from the health centre.

In 2007 ActionAid and UNDP provided the Vinving Lang-yiri women’s group with training and seed to embark on grain banking as another source of livelihood, as well as giving them new varieties of rice to cultivate. 

This has led to the women being transformed into an economically empowered women’s group who  hold monthly sensitization meetings in the communities, which help to support young women through education. 

To live by example, all the members have enrolled their children in school irrespective of whether the child is a male or female.

The other girl still undergoing training at the nursing college thanks to the group, Veronica, is pursuing regular nursing and is due to qualify in late 2010. She has also committed to support the community in sensitizing them on health issues and to provide health care services to the community on a regular basis.

The Vinving community is located in the north east of the Jirapa district with an estimated population of 1620 people, mostly made up of farmers cultivating food crops like sorghum, rice, groundunts, millet and beans.

The major occupations of the women are farming and pito brewing. The women of Vingving through hard work are confronted with many challenges including poverty, high illiteracy, forced marriage, malnutrition, malaria, high infant mortality and maternal death, largely as a result of the absence of a health facility in the community and perennial food shortages. The nearest health facility is the Jirapa hospital which is about 30 kilometres away.

The presence of the grain bank, established with the help of ActionAid, has provided a ready market for rice, groundnut and maize farmers and further ensured the availability of food all year round. As a result, the levels of malnutrition have reduced by 50 % the Vinving community.

Mary Bonzie, chairwoman of the Vinving Lang-yiri women’s group said:

“With support from ActionAid we are able to raise income from cultivation of the improved variety of rice and the trading in grains to support our families to have two meals a day. All our girls are in school and we would support them to be in school. “

The Vinving Lang-yiri group is economically empowered enough to now exist without further financial support. ActionAid will however continue to monitor their progress and use them as a demonstration centre for other groups to learn best practices.