Our partners – The Body Shop International – have won the Sedex Sustainability Award for Community and Collaboration for their work to design and deliver a hugely impactful Lorna Young Foundation ‘Farmers Voice Radio’ project for shea nut collectors and butter processors in northern Ghana.
We are thrilled to be part of this multi partner collaboration, which brings together The Body Shop International, Tungteiya Women’s Association, Cargill Zor, Solidaridad, the Global Shea Alliance (GSA) and us at the LYF. We have been working together on a project that aims to strengthen the sustainability of the shea supply chain in northern Ghana by connecting women shea producers to the knowledge they need to improve their economic resilience.
The collaboration has developed a 3-year project that uses the LYF’s Farmers’ Voice Radio methodology to produce the radio programme Kpihi Saha (Shea Time) that raises the voices of women shea producers on Ghanaian radio stations, Zaa FM and Simli Radio, to address the issues that matter to them.
Kpihi Saha is broadcast four times a week in local language, Dagbani, to an estimated audience of 400,000 people, and discusses quality shea nut collecting, processing and marketing, health and safety, diversifying livelihoods and protecting the shea parklands, as well as broadcasting local shea market prices. In addition, 5720 women will receive training on gender smart business skills, collective marketing, health and safety, climate smart agriculture and income diversification. The project complements GSA’s Action for Shea Parklands initiative, with community level advocacy focussed on sustainable management of the shea parklands.
The Body Shop’s Virginia Sampaio visited the project at the end of 2022 with the Lorna Young Foundation’s Farmers’ Voice Radio representative, Hannah Clark. There, Hannah she met shea nut collectors and butter processors who feature in the weekly radio programmes. Saudatu told the LYF: “The Kpihi Saha radio programmes have transformed my life. I used to add spoiled nuts, but the programme taught me to move the spoiled nuts and now I get better shea butter- it is high quality. I educate a lot of people about the Kpihi Saha radio programme […] It makes me feel important, that I am an ambassador”.
Rakia Shaibu shared how access to information has changed her practices and the impact of this on her family, “I never imagined I could make 200 Ghana cedis profit from my shea nuts, but now I am able to make between 300 and 400 Ghana cedis. This school academic calendar when my husband was unable to pay for our children’s school fees, I did not struggle to pay.”
This LYF project has been funded by the Fund for Responsible Business (FVO), as part of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, The Body Shop International and Cargill Zor.
For more info on our Farmer’s Voice Radio work – head over to our FVR website!
