MASO is a five year programme, focused on creating employment opportunities for the youth (aged 18-25) in Ghana’s cocoa communities.
Young people who live in rural communities are faced with many challenges including unemployment. 23-year-old Charity Konadu is aware of the limited options in her cocoa growing community, Aboduam in the Sefwi Wiaso District of the Western region. She signed up to be trained as a cocoa farmer with the MASO Programme in 2016. She aspires to be crowned as the best cocoa farmer in Ghana in the near future.
“The MASO programme is motivating me to put in a lot of efforts. Now I am aware, if a farmer applies all the best agronomic practices the yields on the farm will increase”, she said.
People keep saying cocoa farming is a man’s job, but Charity is not worried because she has seen other women in her community grow cocoa and succeed. She is however not ignorant of the challenges ahead.
“I am a young lady and I know how difficult it is for women to make it in my community and the country as a whole but I am not concentrating on that. The important thing for me is the fact that I have set a big goal for myself and I hope to achieve that between 10 to 20 years from now. One day, I will be adjudged the best cocoa farmer”.
She has already overcome a major challenge to realising her dream. Charity and her parents have convinced her family head (Custodian of family lands) to allocate two and a half acres of land for her to start her own farm. Charity is starting her own cocoa farm in the 2017 cocoa season.
