USAID RING Presents Nine Hundred And Twenty Small Ruminants To Vulnerable Households

The Nanumba South District Assembly in collaboration with the Resiliency in Northern Ghana (RING) project has presented 920 small ruminants to 140 vulnerable households in seven communities in the Nanumba South District of the Northern Region to help improve their livelihoods and nutrition status.

The beneficiary communities are; Kapugu, Gunguni, Kageso, Basare Kuraa, Asafoatse, Egambo, and Amasantido. Presenting the animals to beneficiary women in the Gunguni Community in the Nanumba South District, the District Chief Executive for the area, Alhaji Seidu Amidu appealed to the people of Nanung in the Northern Region to promote peace and unity in the area in order to attract the much needed development to the area to alleviate the plight of the people.

According to Alhaji Amidu development could not be achieved in an atmosphere of insecurity and hostility and therefore called on the Chiefs and people in the area to exhibit a high sense of tolerance and dialogue in the resolution of conflicts or disagreements.

Alhaji Amidu expressed gratitude to the people of the United States of America for the RING project adding the RING project was a tie between Ghana and the United States of America. He expressed hope that the project would go a long way to deepen the two country’s cooperation towards improving the livelihood and nutritional status of the people in Ghana.

He said so far the RING project had supported the Nanumba South District with an amount of GHc 967,000 to implement activities ranging from small ruminants distributions, cage fishing, demonstrations farms and dry season vegetable cultivation. Others include drip irrigation, Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato piloting, bore holes repairs and the establishment of institutional hand washing stations.

Alhaji Amidu revealed that the RING project in 2014 assisted the district to procure 6 motorbikes for the CHPS Compounds, laptops, digital cameras, printers, scanners to support project activities implementation and monitoring, adding that some core staff of the district have also received technical support from RING in the areas of procurement and ICT training.

He said 4 motorbikes would be purchased this year for CHPS compounds to enable them deliver quality health services to the people.

He called on husbands of beneficiary women to lend support to their spouses to manage the project well.

“Our target is women, for you the men don’t think it is going to women, so you sit aside and watch them to manage the animals alone, even if they are not doing it well, it’s for women so you handle your thing, no it’s for the entire community, but we have realized that women are good care takers and also a vulnerable group that is why they constitute our target group” he said.

The Nanumba South District Director of Agriculture, Mr. Abdul-Rahaman Sulemana Bawah, called on the beneficiary communities to own the activities under the RING intervention through commitment and self-help.

“The project should not be seen as free gifts from RING or the District Assembly, but should be seen as a project that you own and are part of,” he stressed. He appealed to the Chiefs and elders of the area to lend their support to ensure that the RING project becomes a success. Mr. Sulemana Bawah said 14 Community Livestock Workers have also been trained and equipped with kits to provide basic para-vet support to the beneficiary communities in the areas of housing, disease recognition and control, supplementary feeding and management and care for small ruminants.

The RING Livelihoods Coordinator, Mr. Joshua Adjoteye advised the beneficiary women against selling the animals before two years to allow them to multiply. The purpose of the RING project, he explained, is to improve the livelihood and nutritional status of vulnerable households in the Northern Region saying the very essence of the project would be defeated if beneficiaries sold the animals immediately they receive them.

RING is a USAID funded project. The intervention is implemented through a collaborative approach with 17 District Assemblies (DAs) in Northern Region and the Northern Regional Coordinating Council (NRCC) to improve the livelihood and nutritional status of vulnerable households in targeted communities in the Region.