Women start their own cassava farming cooperative
In Nigeria, Concern Universal helps to empower women and girls by educating them in their rights. One way we do this is by creating women’s and youth groups within the community, where together women learn how to exercise and protect their rights. In the agricultural village of Owankade, 20 women came together through this training and decided to set up their own business – a garri factory.
Garri is one of the staple carbohydrates of Nigeria and is a paste made from a potato-like tuber called a cassava. The cassava must be peeled, ground and then fried to make a powder. This powder can then be stored or added to water to make garri. It took the women three months to save for the cassava grinder. This enabled them to grind their own cassava in their own village, instead of having to walk with the cassava to the next village up a steep hill to pay for it to be ground.
Each woman invested N400 (about £1.75) of their own money and added anything earned over the three months. Before long, they had raised almost enough to buy a presser, and took out a small loan to cover the rest. Then, with further income earned from the grinder and the presser, they bought the material with which to buy a fryer. They decided to construct this themselves to save money.
It was not long before they were able to pay back their loan from the money that they were making. And when they had saved enough, they expanded their business even further by buying a plot of land on which to plant extra cassava plants.
The women from this group haven't taken out any cash - they are reinvesting everything into their group to be able to grow their business. It's hard to say exactly how much income they have generated, as financial record keeping is not strong. To help them with this CU now have a graduate who will work with this group and others to help them with business basics such as financial record keeping.
Four years after Concern Universal first started working with this group, the women say that they have eliminated all their challenges. They are moving themselves up the income ladder, and feel more in control of their own finances and futures.
