By Anthony Adongo Apubeo
Nyariga (U/E), Jan 2, GNA-Blessing Baskets Project Ghana, a straw basket exporting organisation and its partner Ten By Three have appreciated the leaders and head artisans of basket weaving groups in Upper East Region.
A total of 55 women leaders from 38 women groups were given 25 kilogrammes of Flora rice each to appreciate their efforts in producing high quality baskets and meeting request demand within the year.
The two organisations have been working with various straw basket weaving groups, mostly women across the Upper East Region, building their capacity and supporting them to produce high quality baskets that met national and international demand.
They also buy the woven baskets from these women at standard prices and export them to foreign countries to create sustained market for them.
Some of the communities include Bolgatanga-Nyariga, Bongo-Nyariga, Sumbrungu, Zaare, Zorko among others.
Mr Abdulai Asuah, Executive Director, Blessing Baskets Project Ghana, said the gesture was also part of efforts to celebrate the head artisans during the festive season for leading and organising member of their groups to meet the requests placed before them.
“This is just a token of appreciation for all that they do for us. This year, we have achieved our target of exporting 40-foot containers of baskets every two months, and the quality of the weaving has improved”, he said.
Apart from the capacity building training, the Blessing Baskets Project Ghana and Ten by Three had been given subsidized straw, raw materials to produce the baskets to the women and creating market avenues for their products.
Mr Asuah said the intervention had empowered more than 2,000 artisans and their families and lifted them out of poverty by equipping them with income generating ventures.
“We have empowered so many artisans, we have encouraged them to invest in income generating activities, such as animal rearing, farming and a lot of them have gone into goat, pig, sheep rearing, and crop farming so that when the basket weaving is no more, they can still generate some income for themselves”, he said.
According to him, the support had led to the graduation of 75 artisans, now entrepreneurs and were no longer weaving the baskets and receiving support from his outfit.
On Corporate Social Responsibility, the Executive Director, said the project which begun in 2004 had led to the building of school, computer laboratory stocked with computers, boreholes and educational fund which had supported many students up to the tertiary level.
Mr Joseph Ayamga, Assembyman for Bolgatanga-Nyariga Electoral Area, commended Blessing Baskets Project Ghana and its partners for the intervention and said it had empowered many vulnerable households in the communities and helped to reduce poverty.
Naba Paul Agoo, the Chief of Zaare, said basket weaving had become a life changing intervention in the area and encouraged the women to produce high quality products that met international standards to attract sustained markets.
The head artisans thanked Blessing Baskets Project Ghana and Ten by Three for the support over the years and said the intervention had afforded them the opportunity to sell their products at high prices and transformed their lives and their families.
Madam Aweligya Adombila, head artisan from the Nyariga-Doone community lauded the project for the support and appealed for extension to other communities to lift many more vulnerable families out of poverty.
GNA