WacamEmpowers Women in Alternative LivelihoodSupport Activities
The growing negative effects of mining operations demand a corresponding empowerment of mining communities in the protection of their rights. Poverty in mining communities has worsened because mining companies have committed large tracts of land belonging to indigenous people to surface mining operations. The situation worsens when these people are deprived of fair, prompt and adequate compensation for properties that are rightfully theirs.
The women exhibiting the products from the skills training
Women and children bear the rife of these problems in situations of loss of livelihood. This is because women engage in the harvesting of fuel wood, oil palm fruits, spices and other non-timber products as their regular source of income. When there is loss of land or forest it leads to the loss of livelihood for the women. In addition, very few women receive compensation for these essential benefits that they derive from the standing forest and other lands. This results in unemploymentand loss of livelihood with no alternative land or viable alternative income activities leading to worsening poverty in mining communities.
Wacam as an advocacy organisation in undertaking its rights education and knowledge sharing campaigns has recognised the need to also empower these women economically by embarking on alternative livelihood development programmes. The organisation has come under pressure from its community groups to undertake these activities as a way of empowering them in attaining their economic needs.
The first step in empowering these women has been to train or develop their skill in alternative livelihood activities that women in some affected communities have requested for. Fifty women from communities such asSaaman,Hemang,Kenyasi,Yamfo and DonkroNkwanta have undertaken a three day skills development training in liquid soap making and bead making in Saaman in the Fanteakwa South district. The women were urged by the chief and the assemblyman of the area to use the skills that they have acquired to undertake viable economic activities in their communities to support not only their families but the community as a whole.
At the end of the three-day activity, most of the women had been able to make their own necklaces, earrings, bracelets and liquid soaps. Wacam is envisaging extending this activity to other communities that are equally facing such livelihood challenges. Also, Wacam intends to develop avenues that can help some of these women groups to start-up businesses after undergoing these trainings.