MASO is a five year programme, focused on creating employment opportunities for the youth (aged 18-25) in Ghana’s cocoa communities.
Almost every MASO youth has a story of how and why they joined. For most, they had limited opportunities and jobs in their communities, but for Vida Tanu, it is a result of a dire need for a fresh start.
Vida Tanu is a budding youth cocoa farmer from Jerusalem, a cocoa farming community in Kasapin in the Ahafo Ano North municipality of the Brong Ahafo region. She is 25 years old. She dropped out of school at primary level due to economic hardships. She indicates her poor economic circumstance forced her into an early marriage with the hope, her fortunes will change. That was however not the case. Her marriage broke down and she became a single mother of two in her early 20s. She was left with the responsibility of catering for her two children.
“I can’t see my children suffer as I have suffered”, Vida emphasizes.
As a result, she decided to give her children a better future by working as a farm hand. But later, decided she will become a cocoa farmer despite all the discouragement from her peers. She was told cocoa farming was a difficult task, an activity women especially single women should stay away from. But she persevered and joined the MASO Programme.
Vida’s MASO Journey
“When i joined the MASO programme in 2016 , the prospects of cocoa farming became clearer to me. I was trained technically on cocoa good practices and socially through the Cocoa Academy training. I started by rehabilitating a three-acre moribund family farm. I weeded and undertook other maintenance activities with support from my mother”.
Vida inter-cropped the farm with plantain, cassava, and maize, which were resource support material from the MASO programme. These served not only as shade crops to the newly planted cocoa seedlings on the farm but also as an income generating activity for her while she waits for the main cocoa harvest season. Yield from the farm started increasing from the initial bag of cocoa from the three acre farm to the latest harvest of two and a half bags. She reinvested a little over 30% (Ghc 520) of her initial revenue of Ghc 1662.50 i.e. total revenues and some saved at the bank.
Thanks to the MASO programme Vida now has a savings account.
Vida Tanu on her way to her farm
Vida’s success in maintaining the moribund farm coupled with the exceptional technical support she offered to other farmers based on the skills acquired from the MASO programme attracted attention in the Jerusalem community and beyond. A landowner in a nearby community called Betoda offered her a ten-acre tract of land to establish a farm on a sharecropping basis. She has presently cultivated three acres of cocoa on the land and intercropped it with plantain, cocoyam, and maize.
“As a result of the of my savings, I now employ labor on my farms to support me. Progressively am expanding the farm year after year” Vida said.
Vida also cultivates a half-acre each plantain and maize farms to supplement her income. She is however not relenting in her efforts to ensure her family financial security. Vida is into other ventures.
“I rear chickens as well. I got the idea to diversify my farming approach due to the training I received on the MASO programme” Vida said.
“I will forever be indebted to the MASO programme. I am a successful youth cocoa farm who is able to pay for her children’s school fees”, she concludes.
