The President and Founder of Ladies with Vision (LWV), Madiana Mensah-Gborie has disclosed that LWV has embarked on Agriculture by giving seedlings, farm tools to young women in Bo district, Southern Sierra Leone.
She went on to say LWV is partnering with SRD sponsored by FRIDA to help women in Bo district developing their income base.
Madam Mensah-Gborie pointed out that LWV has always worked frantically to see that women are empowered and also to boost the vision of President Bio in the fight against food insecurity.
“Across the world, women make up a large portion of agricultural labor. In developing countries like Sierra Leone their contributions exceeds 50 %. However, only a small percent of those women has ownership to assets such as land, livestock, and human capital, inputs, seeds, fertilizers, labor, and finance and services like training and workshops,” she stated.
She emphasized that women need specialized agricultural training and customized support to ease their double work load as farmers and caregivers, the right resources could help women maximize economic opportunities, increase productivity, and improve food security, education and healthcare, since women tend to reinvest in their households.
“Food insecurity and vulnerability to shocks have worsened significantly over the past ten years for most. Sierra Leone, has reaching a staggering 57 percent of the population in which women and children are mostly affected. The COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout has further exacerbated living conditions and access to basic amenities in 2020,” she said.
He added that Sierra Leone president has opted to focus on agriculture because of the food insecurities in the country. The ones that are mostly affected are women and children.
“To help in the national campaign, ladies with vision has decided to target women in Agriculture and power them, provide inputs such as farm tools, seedlings and fertilizers to rural women farmers which will boost their livelihood activities and improve on the food security of their various household and communities.”
Additionally, she said, it will increase the number of rural women owning/operating profitable farms and argic- related businesses and their profile in leadership positions throughout the agricultural sectors of business, government and community will be actualized.
This project will provide education, technical assistance, garden tools and seedling to women farmers in Bo district, Southeastern Sierra Leone. Ladies with Vision plan to work with established, beginning, and aspiring women farmers at the district.
To achieve the goals, the organization has started workshops for aspiring and beginning women farmers in the Bo District, and they will link them to agricultural value chains, increase their access to trainings and information, provide them with farm tools, train them on new agricultural technologies and agri-business development.
She expressed commitment of Ladies With Vision Sierra Leone to assisting and empowering vulnerable women as well as those living in remote and undeserved communities. This project will work perfectly with our goal which is to change the societal perspective about women in Sierra Leone, by providing trainings, inputs, seedlings to aid boost livelihood activities of women farmers.
“The changes that will occur will be positive. It will help curb the food insecurities in Sierra Leone as more women and girls will be targeted and benefit from the project,” she emphasized.
