Goats for Ghana!

Our Ghana team has been working with the people of Nyobido since 2019. The community there has been particularly hard hit by poor farm yields in recent years. The women used to farm beans or cowpeas, but after a series of disastrous harvests are now struggling to get by. This has been further compounded by the disruption from the pandemic. Many parents now find themselves unable to pay school fees for their children or family medical fees.

The women of Nyobido have heard of the success of our animal rearing self-help groups in other communities. They have now asked our team to bring it to their village to help combat the poverty they face.

Like all of our work in Northern Ghana, the idea at the heart of this project is to give practical help to communities while bringing former enemies together across tribes and clans. Our team takes every opportunity to break down barriers through regular group meetings that help people get to know and work alongside each other. Our experience over ten years has shown that this approach really works, as Mawong's story shows below!

Can you help us to make their dream a reality?

To support the women of Nyobido, we want to form 20 new animal rearing groups and give each group two goats to get them started!

By donating, you will help us to buy goats to deliver a regular supply of fertiliser for their crops, leather for making shoes and other items, and meat to feed their families and sell at the market. Your support can help to:

• Lift a struggling household out of poverty, help them recover from the disruption of the pandemic and meet costs such as school and medical fees
• Create a sustainable community project, as young goat kids are passed on to help others start new groups
• Bring former enemies together to learn, work and build friendships together!

As well as raising money to buy the goats themselves, we also need to pay for veterinary fees, buy feed for the new goats to get the groups started, pay for training and meet the costs of managing the project.  

You can make a difference!

Here are some examples of what your gift could achieve:

• £12 could buy enough goat feed for a new group!
• £30 could buy one new goat!
• £100 could pay for a goat, along with vet fees, training and everything else a new group needs to get started!

Mawong's story: “Goats have brought us together with our enemies!”

Mawong is a wife and grandmother. Her husband is old and unable to work, while her extended family struggles to meet their rising living costs.

She was part of the first CHIPS animal rearing group ten years ago and after starting with chickens, she was soon able to buy her first goat! Five years later, she has made enough money to pay school fees for her two grandsons, saved money to protect her household against a financial emergency, and even recently donated two goats for a traditional community funeral.

Today, Mawong is preparing to buy her first cow and her enthusiasm is contagious. She says the project has helped her community to make peace with its former enemies - and regularly gives testimonies at group meetings to encourage women from both the Konkomba and Nanumba tribes to take part. 

She's now become a local expert, and people from both sides regularly visit her to ask for advice on animal rearing!

Further information

You can read more about CHIPS' work in Ghana on our website.

The money we raise will go towards the project described, including the purchase of animals and feed, vet fees and project management costs. The deliverables costed above are estimates of what your donation could achieve, given for illustration only.

In the unlikely event that we raise more money than we need, we'll allocate any excess to our other work supporting struggling households in Ghana. 

All the people stories we use are inspired by real examples from our work. Names, photos and details may be blended, and anonymised to protect privacy.