The Mara Consortium – Mara Foods, Mara Closet, and Beautiful Smiles Project – has trained women and young girls on liquid soap making at Gudaayiri in the Wa East District of the Upper West Region.
The training was a segment of a community engagement held by the Mara group at the Gudaayiri community following a modest request by youth group, Youth Alliance for Community Change (YACC Ghana).
The community engagement on Sunday, January 30, 2022 featured health sensitization talks on cervical cancer, discussions on business opportunities in the area and skills training on liquid soap making.
Chief Executive Officer of the consortium, Maria Johana Yuorpor, in her remarks at the opening of the training, said the engagement aimed at building a healthy population and self-reliant entrepreneurial minds.
She noted that it is imperative to empower women economically through livelihood skills training to enhance their opportunities to generate income to transform lives.
She said entrepreneurial skills were crucial for everyone to acquire as it could be a life changing experience, and that she aims at equipping the womenfolk with employable skills to make them self-reliant.
Nasihat Isshak, a nurse who facilitated the health session on cervical cancer, explained the basic causes, risk factor as well as prevention and control measures to the participants to help them acquire sound knowledge about the condition and keep safe from it.
She admonished participants to be conscious of their health statuses, especially cervical cancer which is a leading cause of cancers in women.
Mr Iddrisu Kaapuori, an opinion leader and former Assembly Member of the area, speaking on behalf of elders of the community, thanked the organizers for bringing the training to the door steps of the women.
He underscored the importance of the programmes to check unemployment and alleviate poverty from homes.
He asked the beneficiaries to make good use of the knowledge and skills acquired to derive the needed benefit from it to contribute to enhancing the development of their communities.
About 100 women and young girls drawn from Gudaayiri and neighbouring Yaru benefitted from a one-day skill training to enable them to set up their own businesses.
The beneficiaries commended Mara Foods profoundly for the initiative, saying, the knowledge acquired would go a long to positively impact their lives.
They assured the organizers that they will utilize the tuition offered them to make a living for them to be self-sufficient and to contribute towards the development of their areas and the country as a whole.
The event is amongst one of her [Maria Johana Yuorpor] numerous widow’s mite contributions towards the achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals particularly SDGs 1 (No Poverty), 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing), 5 (Gender Equality) and 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth).