Women form housing cooperatives

Women form housing cooperatives
Daily Graphic, Saturday, 8th August, 2009, Page 11, (Gender and Children)
Kofi Yeboah

The Accra Metropolitan Department of Cooperatives has organised a workshop for low-income earning women in Accra on how to access land and undertake building projects.

About 100 participants drawn from Old Fadama and Ayidiki attended the workshop, which was aimed at organising the women into housing cooperatives to mobilise funds internally to acquire land and undertake building projects using the cooperative principles.

It was supported by the Ghana Women Land Access Trust (GAWLAT), an intermediary organisation of UN Habitat.

In an address, the Accra Metropolitan Director of Cooperatives, Mr John Nyarko, urged the women to come together as one group and use the credit union savings concept to improve their businesses and own houses.

The Tema Metropolitan Director of Cooperatives, Mr Godwin Gogovi, told the participants to be mindful of the fact that in every group, conflict was likely to emerge, but the most important thing was for the leaders to address such conflicts in manner that would break up the group.

A retired Chief Technical Officer at the Lands Valuation Board, Mr Arnold Gadogbe, took the participants through the process of acquiring and registering land.

Member of GAWLAT who also shared thoughts with the participants were Mrs Harriet Gyebi-Taylor, Ms Sarah Savage, Ms Joana Ofori, Coordinator and Mrs Kakra Hagan, Consultant.

The Tema Metropolitan Director of Cooperatives will later organise similar workshops at Ashiaman for participants from Ningo and Kpone Katamanso.

Four other workshops, two in Kasoa and two in Ada, have been lined up, after which a leadership training programme will be organized for the leaders of the groups.