Volunteer Partnerships for West Africa Launches Job Creation and Sustainability with Green Ghana Project’s ‘Miracle Tree’

Post date: Aug 20, 2010 12:5:12 AM

The VPWA Green Ghana Project has begun the task of reviving African land with Moringa Oleifera seedlings – helping to sustain livelihoods and generate jobs.

Volunteer Partnerships for West African has organized a workshop in Darmang Anhuntem, a rural farming community in the Eastern Region of Ghana to launch the ‘Miracle Tree.’

Also known as ‘mother’s best friend’, the Moringa tree can grow in hot climates has both nutritional and medicinal properties, making it an essential project undertaking by the VPWA.

The VPWA Green Ghana Project will be transplanting Moringa seedlings from a one hectare farm land in Darmang Anhuntem to rehabilitate degraded lands due to various mining activities both in Eastern and Greater Accra Region of Ghana.

The Project is also seeking to construct a Youth Development Centre, which will train rural youth in assembly, installation and repair, of solar devices. This enterprise is expected to generate hundreds of sustainable jobs, giving local communities a brighter future.

Green Ghana Project consultant and workshop facilitator, Suzanne Enoh-Arthur, is optimistic that the scheme by VPWA will be supporting home-grown solutions, resolving the hardships facing communities in Ghana.

The Project launch was also used to unveil the newly constructed office for VPWA duties and activities in the Eastern Region of Ghana. This brings in total, three satellite offices of VPWA in Ghana.

Hayford Siaw, Green Ghana Project Country Coordinator and Executive Director of VPWA, emphasized the need to rehabilitate degraded lands and called for more awareness by Human Rights Activists on community rights and effective land use. He said: “Degraded lands do not only cause fertile breeding grounds for mosquitoes but also deprive people of their livelihood. It is our hope that when these lands are rehabilitated mosquito borne diseases will be drastically reduced in the beneficiary communities, while agricultural productivity is boosted.”

VPWA Volunteers from Ghana, the US, England, Canada, Italy and Switzerland joined the community of Darmang Anhuntem led by the Chief Linquist, Okyeame Nana Agyei for the workshop.

Notes for the Editor:

Volunteer Partnerships for West Africa (VPWA) is an indigenous African volunteer driven development NGO, engaged in applying the services of global volunteers. These volunteers make a local impact in West African communities with the aim of helping to achieve the Millennium Development Goals-MDGs. For more information go to: http://www.vpwa.org