Group of blind people in Ghana find independence through collective farming

From Joy Online in Ghana:

The Blind and the Lame in the Oncho-Free Zone of the Upper West Region have lived up to the saying that being physically challenged is not a disability.

Unlike the physically challenged persons elsewhere, who are despised, marginalised and regarded as a burden to society those in the South Sissala area have been able to turn their lives around through perseverance.

They have refused to depend on dole outs from sympathetic family members and philanthropists and have gone into lucrative market gardening.

As Mr James Dumah, Coordinator of the Tumu Deanery Development Programme, of the Catholic Church put it, "the vicious cycle of poverty is being broken and we are on the warpath to eradicate it from among these handicapped people in the area".

He said "these handicapped individuals recognized their disadvantaged position and came together to form an association for the disabled made up of the Blind, the Lame and Marginalized, and resolved to go into agriculture to make their lives better".

Their perseverance paid off when the then Funsi Agricultural Programme (FAP), a nongovernmental organisation of the Wa Diocese of the Catholic Church, recognized their determination and supplied them with vegetable seeds to undertake dry season gardening.

The aim of FAP was to create some economic venture that the physically challenged could run with minimal assistance and to make that possible FAP liaised with the Department of Social Welfare, which eagerly assigned an officer to assist the group by providing it with guidance and technical advice.

The strategy paid off and the membership increased and the garden was expanded to create room for the cultivation of onions and vegetables that would provide a balanced diet for the residents of Funsi during the lean season when it is always difficult to get vegetables.

Marketing strategies were employed through the assistance of the Social Welfare Officer and the group now has a ready market for their produce.

Currently the group produces between 50 and 60 maxi-bags of bulb onions and in addition to tomatoes, pepper, okra and spinach.

Mr Iddi Basing, the Chairman of the Group, who became visually impaired at the age of 50, said their success was not chalked without tears. He explained that they had to grope their way to the bush to cut sticks for the garden, which was sub-divided into plots and distributed to members to cultivate their crops.

Since there was no facility for irrigating the land, they had to depend on fetching water from a near-by dug out to water their crops.

The group was adjudged the best dry season gardeners during the 2006 Farmers' day celebration in the District and received a water pumping machine as one of their prizes, which now enhances their work.

Following this success, social interventions began to arrive with the Wa East District Assembly providing a fencing wire for the garden while the Funsi Parish of the Catholic Church donated water tanks. A total of one-and-a-half hectares has been fenced and irrigated.

"Times have changed," said Mr Bayong Williams, a member of the group who became blind at the age of 30, adding; "it is difficult to reconcile my past with the present situation".

He said; "since the formation of the Association my fortunes have changed for the better. I can now eat adequately and take care of my children in school".

Many of the members including the females have similar success stories to tell. However, they all agree that the timely intervention of FAP made all the difference in their lives.

Madam Adisa, a female member of the group, appealed to the Government to construct a dam at Funsi to facilitate dry season gardening to provide employment for the youth and the vulnerable in the society.

She said feasibility studies were carried out on the dam by the previous Government but work on it could not start before they left office and urged the present administration to continue from where they left off.

Madam Hawa Sanko, another member of the group, said physically challenged women faced strong prejudices and stigmatization and therefore appealed to all people who supported their welfare, to join hands to create the awareness for their acceptance in society.

Indeed physically challenged women are the most vulnerable as they often faced all manner of discriminations and are always disadvantaged in all activities including marriage. To be a woman and be physically challenged has obvious implications.

Most physically challenged people either rely on sympathetic family members for sustenance or end up as beggars in the streets of the urban centres where they receive public sympathy.

Fortunately for the physically challenged in the South Sissala area of the Wa East District, which is an oncho-free zone, life has changed for them as they are making money through their own toil.