Migration from Bongo curbed

Migration from the Bongo District has been significantly curbed after the initiation of the World Vision International (WVI) drip irrigation project at Gorugu and Dua in the District.

Due to the only one rainy season in the Region coupled with the poor soil most people in the area had to travel to the southern parts of the country to engage in menial jobs such as head porters and fufu ‘pounders’ in the city.

To help complement government efforts at reducing the menace, WVI introduced the drip irrigation system at the Gorugu and Dua communities for the farmers to engage in dry season farming.

At Gorugu, the 80 farmers made up of 40 women and 40 men had been cropping vegetables such as tomato, okro, pepper, onion, “bitor”, “alefe” and maize among others.

When a team of WVI donor partners from the United States of America came to verify the work in progress, many farmers said had it not been the intervention of WVI, most of them would have been in the southern sector in search for menial jobs.

Mr Aseliga Balango ,37, who was full of praise for the drip irrigation project, said “most of my family members including myself other communities used to travel to the southern parts of the country to look for petty jobs during the dry season but now that have stopped. Many of them are now engaging in dry season farming through the drip irrigation project.”

Mrs Akolgoma Atia, 35, said she had been able to support the upkeep of her family through the proceeds she gets from the sales of vegetables and that she had been paying her two children school fees through the facility.

“Apart from all these benefits, our nutritional status has improved tremendously as compared to the period prior to the initiation of the project”, she stressed.

At Dua community the situation was not difference, the Assembly woman for the area, Mrs Justina Bukari, said the drip Irrigation project had empowered the 40 people made up of 20 women and 20 men to pay for their National Health Insurance scheme, school fees of their wards as well as contributing to the housekeep.

She reiterated that formerly majority of women in the area had to troop the southern sectors to look for jobs but this trend had been reduced and appealed to WVI to expand the drip irrigation project to the other communities in the Region to help reduce the canker of rural urban migration.

Mrs Benedictaa Pealore, the Operation based Team leader in charge of the Upper East Region, said her outfit decided to introduce the drip irrigation system to empower the people.

She encouraged the farmers to take advantage of the opportunities and to work harder to increase their production to empower them take good care of their families.

Mr David Nunoo, Coordinator of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene of WVI, said his outfit apart from providing the farmers with the facility, offered capacity building training to farmers in the area of simple agronomics practices, book keeping, techniques in managing the facility and as wells provided them with improved seeds.

He said it is the plan of WVI that all the 16 Area Development Programmes (ADPs) in the three northern regions would be supported with drip irrigation facilities to help improve upon the livelihoods of the people.

The Team who also visited Zingadoone in the the Kassena Nankana East inspected the drilling of a borehole done by the Hydro team of WVI at the total cost of about 15,000 dollars. They also visited the Bongo –Soe Community where they are supporting women who are into shea butter processing.

Jessica Ohisen, the team leader of WVI USA, said they were highly impressed with the positive execution of projects and programs by World Vision Ghana.