Continuing support for Women's Groups in Lawra District
on Horrockses on VSO (Ghana), 24/Feb/2010 15:15, 34 days ago
We arrived back in North Wales,in the UK, on September 27th 2009 at lunchtime; at 7.30pm onthe same daywe found ourselves rehearsing for a Vaudeville (Music Hall) with Ruthin Musical Theatre. We joined in with all sorts of crazy musical/theatrical/farcical deeds for the Vaudeville, which was performed in our local village hall in Llanfair DC and succeeded in raising£7,500 for local and overseas charities. £1950 of this was earmarked for African developments with which we were both partially and significantly associated.£650 went to the Open Arms Orphanage in Malawi and £1300 was earmarked for continuing our support to credit union development with Women's Groups in the Lawra District of Ghana.£650 has already been transferred to Lawra through the continuing involvement of Eric Kaliebu, our good friend, who used to work with the Ministry of Agriculture (MOFA) in Lawra and who helped us set up the first Credit Union in the Lawra District with the Song Taa Group in Tuori village. Eric's last report, sent to us by e mail, in addition to several Skype to mobile conversations from the UK (Eric gets a better mobile signal than we get at home!) triggered the first £650 donation. The second £650 donation will be transferred in several weeks time to give time for the preparatory work withthe next village group to take place; also subject to satisfactory feedback from Eric.So far the money has been used to significant effect; enabling local women to manage, allocate, collect and re-allocate the money according to the needs of the different 'women's enterprise groups' at the time of the year when it is most needed. The initial Tuori group has now gone through a full (annual) cycle and the interest payments received have now increased the communal 'pot' by a further 50 cedis!A further£130 was also sent out for the Tuori credit Union by a dedicated group of women craft enthusiasts in Ruthin; they held an Open Day and the proceeds of the day were donated to Song Taa.