The Guinea Fowl project of the Rural Initiatives Ghana Foundation will provide new opportunities for approximately 170 destitute women presently living in "witches camps" in Northern Ghana. The project assists women victimized by superstition and rejected from their home communities after being accused of witchcraft. Funding received will provide for the purchase of small breeding flocks of local Guinea Fowl and group training in best practices for sustainable small-scale poultry production.
In Ghana, the belief in witchcraft has resulted in many women being marginalized and outcast from their communities after being identified as witches. Although it seems to most people that a belief in witchcraft is superstitious ignorance, witch-hunts still continue in Ghana. The number of women marginalized as outcasts and forced to live in witches camps is growing. Food supplies in such camps are insufficient and the women forced to live there suffer dehumanizing conditions.
Our project will assist the victims living in the marginalized communities of Kpatinaga and Nabuli in Northern Ghana to develop increased opportunities for community food production and economic independence.The project seeks to empower 170 women and their households through support with guinea fowl rearing and livestock/fowl production. Benefits for these vulnerable households will include improved food access, nutrition security and enhanced economic opportunities for their communities.
The project will empower 170 witch hunt victims, increasing their access to food supplies and their opportunities to earn an independent livelihood. The project will assist marginalized women regain some of their dignity and sense of their own personal value while assisting to improve the economic well being of their communities. It is our hope that empowering these marginalized women will result in benefits not only to themselves and their families but to their local communities as well.
