Ms Christiana Saratu Awini, a 31-year-old student of the Bolgatanga Midwifery Training College, says she would be going into organic onion production in the Binduri District in the Upper East Region to complement her midwifery profession.
The final year student made the declaration of her intention in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of a graduation ceremony of 38 beneficiaries who participated in an eight-week intensive training programme at the Bolgatanga Technical University.
It was part of the Social Entrepreneurship Development Businesses, organised by the Youth Challenge International Programme, a Canadian Non – Governmental Organisation, under the Herstart Project.
It was aimed at empowering young girls between the ages of 18 and 35 to come up with new innovations related to challenges in their respective communities and to map out strategies on how to deal with such problems.
Ms Awini, who showcased her business development plan dubbed ‘Onion Production in Binduri’, said s
he was already engaged in onion farming but was doing that with inorganic farming practices.
The final year student said she had decided to go into organic onion production because she had realised that apart from the health effects of inorganic farming on humans, such farming practices were less costly because fertilizers were more expensive.
She said to complement government’s effort to generate employment for the youth, particularly young girls and to also help curb rural urban migration in the area, she intended to establish a composting plant where she would train more young girls and women to go into compost making and to supply at a cost to onion farmers in the Binduri community.
‘Through this intervention I will not only be seen addressing the health needs of onion consumers but also generating employment for young girls in the Binduri community who usually migrate from Binduri to the southern sector to seek for non-existence jobs’, she said..
Addressing the participants at the closing ceremony, P
rofessor, Daniel Azerikatoa Ayoung, the Programme Team Leader, expressed happiness about the outstanding performance of the beneficiaries and said the Herstart Project, focuses on gender and economic empowerment of young girls.
He said one of the project implementation strategies was to train young girls as Social Entrepreneurs and to empower them with capital to establish their own economic ventures to cater for themselves.
Source: Ghana News Agency