Month: April 2021

This project seeks to promote the use and revival of indigenous seeds in Northern Ghana for crops that are both nutritious and adaptable to climate change.

Background

In Northern Ghana, many rural economies and food security depend upon smallholder farming. This dependence is, however, threatened by climate change. With changing weather patterns, farmers are no longer able to predict the patterns of the rainy season. Furthermore, floods and droughts have led to soil degradation and desertification, further intensified by deforestation.

Farming with indigenous seeds can combat many of these challenges. As they are native to the land, genetically, they have been moulded by the chemical and physical interactions in the soil and with the surrounding environment for an extended amount of time. Thus, indigenous seeds are much more adaptive to the local climate than foreign varieties; they are drought resistant and have a quick maturation rate.

Further benefits of using indigenous seeds include:

• Meets nutrition needs
• Farmers can reproduce the seeds themselves
• Do not need to use chemical fertilizers to grow, which are harmful to the surrounding environment and one’s health

What we do

We have partnered with the African Biodiversity Network (ABN) to promote indigenous seed use in five communities: Tindang, Yilikpani, Langa, Yiziagu, & Yiworgu. They were selected as they are in a district highly vulnerable to climate change.

Focus Areas

1. To increase seed variety in targeted areas
2. To revive traditional knowledge and systematically document it
3. Strengthen community advocacy and lobbying to influence policy on smallholder agriculture

 Strategies

• Training for farmers on cataloguing, database development, seed revival and storage, & agro-ecological practices
• Establishment of community seed banks
• Seed fairs
• Farmer-to-farmer exchange visits
• Peer-learning & community dialogue
• Capacity building advocacy & lobbying
• Documentation and subsequent dissemination

Partnerships

• African Biodiversity Network
• Brot für die Welt
• Savanah Radio
• Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA)
• Community Leaders

The Strategic Approaches to Girls Education (STAGE) is a 5year intervention that provides young girls with non-formal education and skill training to respond to the high illiteracy and unemployment rate in Northern Ghana. Despite growing numbers of literate at the national level (76.6%), the Northern region still records low literacy rates (32.5%) and far behind the national average.

In effect, STAGE aims at lowering the barriers that girls in Ghana face in achieving an education and skills training by providing non-formal education opportunities to create more diverse and empowered marginalized young girls towards improving their life chances.

The project is funded by DFID and jointly implemented by a consortium of 9 local NGOs led by World Education Inc. RAINS goal in this project is to reach out directly to over 2,300 marginalized out of school young girls in 94 communities in Nanumba South and Kpandai districts of the Northern region of Ghana.

The first year of the project witnessed the empowerment of over 500 vulnerable young girls with numeracy and literacy skill in their local dialect and livelihood skill training in 20 communities in the two districts. STAGE contributes substantially to the realization of SDG 1,4, 5 and 8, which ensures that we end poverty, improved literacy and sustain economic growth in a gender-responsive and inclusive manner.

Key Partners

• Funding: Foreign, Commonwealth
• & Development Office (formerly Department for International Development- DFID)
• Consortium Lead: World Education, Inc.
• District Level Partners:
• Community Leaders and District Assemblies
• Non-Formal Education Department (NFED)
• Association for Persons with Disabilities
• Ghana Education Service
• Social Welfare Department

RAINS is implementing the PASEWAY project in partnership with Plan International and funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic and Development Corporation (BMZ). The PASEWAY project seeks to empower young people with skills to find formal decent employment or set up their own businesses in the construction sector.

RAINS is targeting to reach 1,200 beneficiaries in the Tamale Metropolis and Sagnarigu Municipality of Northern region.

The PASEWAY Project will support young people under four different areas:

• Technical and Soft Skills (for unskilled youth with career interest in the construction sector)
• Soft Skills Only (targeting youth people with formal training who are searching for formal employment in the construction sector)
• Certification of prior knowledge and Soft Skills (targeting youth with skills acquired in the informal training spaces with no formal certification of skills)
• Support with the formalization of Youth led Construction and Business Development Services (targeting young construction entrepreneurs)

To achieve this, a combination of various approaches are being pursued that include taking into account the technical and social requirements of employers in the value chain of the construction sector.

PASEWAY contributes substantially to the realization of SDG 1, 8, 9 and 11 by enhancing the skills of young people to improve their livelihood and participate effectively in creating sustain growth and society in Ghana.

Key Partners

• Plan International Ghana
• Ghana Education Service
• National Youth Authority
• National Vocational and Technical Institute
• Metropolitan and Municipal Assemblies
• Business Advisory Centres of the NBSSI

The School Pedagogy Project is implemented by RAINS in partnership with AXIS and funded by DANIDA through CISU

This project aims at improving the quality of education in schools in Northern Ghana through the introduction and use of participatory teaching and learning methodologies. This project is premised on the fact that despite the remarkable successes witnessed in improving access to education to basic education in Ghana, however the educational systems is still grappling with issues related to the quality of teaching and learning received by children.

It focuses on teacher capacity building, strengthening PTA/SMC, enhancing supervision and advocacy as vehicles to achieving its goal.

The project also entails a component of active citizenship. This component is geared at ensuring that children know their rights and responsibilities and are encourages to participate in actions that are intended for the good of society.

The first phase of the project stretched between July 2017 and August, 2018. Within this period, the project concept of using school gardens as tools for teaching and learning was piloted in two (2) school in the Savelugu Municipality. The successful completion of this pilot phase ushered the project into its second phase with the addition of four (4) more schools in the municipality.

Beneficiary schools

Bunglung Basic School               Nyoglo Primary School           Kadia Basic School

Tibali Primary School                 Yemo Primary School             Nabogu Primary School

Numbers Reached

Teachers= 106

Children= 2816

PTA/SMC Executives: 120

Key Partners

• AXIS, Denmark
• Ghana Education Service
• Ministry of Food and Agriculture
• Traditional authorities/Community Leaders
• PTAs/SMCs
• Saint Vincent College of Education, Yendi

The Integrated Community Empowerment (INCOME) program is a CFTC (Canadian Feed The Children) funded program which aims at contributing to the realisation of the global CFTC ultimate outcome of: ‘A world in which children thrive, free from poverty’. The Ghana program however has as an outcome: ‘Children in Vibrant, sustainable communities in Northern Ghana have foundations to build a prosperous future’ and this will   be achieved through the realisation of specific sector outcomes;

• Women and Men in project communities are able to meet basic nutritional needs of their families
• Girls and boys in project communities in Northern Ghana have access to quality formal primary and kindergarten education supported by strong community engagement
• Strong, sustainable local organisations drive community development that benefits children in Northern Ghana.

The program which is integrated and is being rolled out in phases; phase one was implemented between January 2013 and December, 2019 in four communities in three districts. These were Sang in the Mion district, Bidima in the West Gonja municipality, Kpachelo and Zoosali in the Savelugu Municipality. Phase two of the program which is currently being implemented cover the period January 2020 to December 2023. Under this phase, a total of 1548 children (Boys = 771 and Girls= 777) in the basic level and 1200 women engaged in crop production, apiculture, rearing of ruminants and the Village Savings and Loans scheme are being supported. The latter set of activities targeting women have been designed to help improve household income levels and ensure biodiversity conservation.

RAINS believes that every child, no matter where they are born, deserves a chance to receive quality education. Thus under the INCOME program, RAINS and CFTC pay particular attention to early childhood development, targeting children from ages four to five years as well as those at the basic school level. This is because though, Early Childhood Education is part of Ghana’s basic education system, this level of education has largely been underserved with teachers, school facilities, teaching and learning materials among others.

The INCOME program is thus contributing toward the following:

• Increase enrolment and retention of children especial girls within its operational communities
• Increase in access to nutritional food at the household level
• Providing alternative sources of income and livelihoods for women and men
• Improving biodiversity and the impacts of Climate change on small holder women farmers

Implementing Partners

• Canadian Feed The Children
• Ghana Education Service
• Municipal and District Assemblies
• Ghana Health Service          
• Ghana Red Cross Society      
• Community Stakeholders