USAID/Sierra Leone: Success Breeds Success For Manjama Women's Agricultural Cooperative

NOVEMBER 1, 2007

Success Breeds Success For Manjama Women's Agricultural Cooperative

A prospering women's agricultural cooperative supported by USAID/Sierra Leone sets an example for other farmer groups in neighboring Kono District communities.

MANJAMA, Kono District -- The sign outside the Women for Peace Association's (WOPA) agricultural cooperative reads "As You Sow, So You Shall Reap." For Chairwoman Nancy Bayoh and other members of the WOPA cooperative, they are words to live - and farm - by.

WOPA has demonstrated that a small investment by USAID/Sierra Leone's LINKS (Linkages for Economic Livelihood, Security and Development) program, implemented here by World Vision, can make a big difference for farmers in Manjama and in the neighboring villages of Kono District.

Since its formation three years ago, WOPA has used its small grant to increase agricultural income by improving farming techniques, providing processing services to nearby farmers and building the community's agricultural infrastructure.

The payoffs have been huge. The families of cooperative member now can afford the fees required to send their children to school. The health of the women and children is improved. And not least, WOPA has attracted the interest of farmers from neighboring villages, who want to learn how its success can be duplicated in their communities.

Nancy Bayoh (left), chairman of the WOPA cooperative, has been a mentor to
other women seeking to form cooperatives.

Nancy Bayoh (left), chairman of the WOPA cooperative, has been a mentor to other women seeking to form agricultural cooperatives.

For Nancy Bayoh, each accomplishment is a validation of the message on the WOPA sign.

The cooperative's impact on the health of the Manjama community also has been obvious, said Bayoh, a nurse who also runs the village health clinic. "If you see the health of the some of the women, you'll know that the nutritional status in this community is higher," she said.

Twice a week, the 30 women of the cooperative gather at their tin-roofed cooperative headquarters to process cassava into garri, dry and dehull rice and discuss issues of mutual concern -- such as how to increase the cooperative's productivity and income.

WOPA has 2.5 million Leones (about $850) in its bank account and another 500,000 Leones ($170) on loan to members of the cooperative, Bayoh said. "Last week we were suffering from a drying floor problem," she said. "We took 200,000 [Leones] from the community bank to buy cement and we made our own drying floor."

Loans to cooperative members are paid back with interest or, sometimes, in products grown by members. "If people don't have money, they come to us, [saying] 'Please help us with such and such,'" Bayoh said. "And sometimes they give us rice or the money."

If a family needs rice and the cooperative has extra, WOPA will offer one bag of rice for a repayment of two bags after the next rice harvest, she said.

WOPA has been busy constructing market buildings in Manjama, which is just nine miles from the Guinean border. "The weekly market will help people to get money and sell their things," Bayoh said. "We need a better road. We are sensitizing the community and the authorities to organize the youths, to help them to make better roads.

"Before you ask, you have to do something," she said.

WOPA has made a "big mark" in Manjama and, in turn, its success has encouraged other groups to come forward, according to Edward Benya, USAID/Sierra Leone's team leader for agriculture.

"People are becoming interested in the Farmers Field School here because of the progress these women have made. The women are going about setting up schools in other communities," Benya said. "It started just like any pilot program, and now people come to these schools to learn to go and set up schools in their own communities."

"At this time we are spread into eight communities," said Bayoh, adding that WAPO started assisting new cooperative in early June after a period of "sensitization. I went there and asked them, they should know why they want to join this group as a farm family.

"They said they are now seeing most of the children who are the streets are going to school. They see the nutritional status is developing higher," Bayoh said. "They see the machines, the food we transport to the market on Sundays.

"We tell them that … you should call up a meeting, organize yourself into groups, you start to do something, then you come, we will go and visit you," she said. "[When] we know you people are really ready, then we start to bring our own knowledge. But you should do something first.

"The [first] assignment is to form the groups and [members] meet every Friday to donate 1,000 Leones. The 1,000 Leones, you get that money to open a bank account," Bayoh said. "Then you emphasize [a] backyard garden. Next month we will sit there and see whether they are ready, then we will go to our sensitization."

Members of the WOPA cooperative use a machine to dehull rice for growers in Manjama village.

Farmers who understand the requirements WOPA places on the cooperatives-in-training have already learned the first lesson, according to Bayoh

"How can you protest? That machine, this house, we built it on our own. This drying floor -- it's money," she said. "Every week they should donate 1,000 Leones. If not, you cannot be farm family, because there is no way to success except [to] work hard."

Besides training other farmers how to run their own cooperatives, several other WOPA projects are plowing its production back into the community.

For example, the cooperative not only dehulls rice, it also uses its new motorized tricycle to transport crops from the fields to its production facility -- for a small fee. And now with its drying floor, it can charge another fee for its drying service..

Using proceeds from its sales, WOPA financed the construction of a large farmers market in Manjama. It has started planting sorghum, which the cooperative believes has a ready market.

"Our plan in the future -- we want most of their children to go to university. So we have to put feathers together to promote the group, so that most of them will go to the university," she said.

WOPA is working on another intractable problem: Improving the district's roads so Kono cooperatives can more easily transport their crops to other markets, such as Koindu and even Freetown.

"I talked to the ward committee about the road, about the importance of the women's group," Bayoh said with characteristic energy. Then she added, "If the woman is not out working, there is no success in the home."

Story and photos by Richard Stirba