Njawara Agricultural Training Centre in partnership with the Agency for
Development of Women and Children with support from the Belgian international
NGO Solidarity for Agriculture SOLIDAGRO has trained 72 advocacy facilitators
on land rights campaign, held at the Njawara Agricultural Training Centre in
the North Bank Region.
Speaking on the occasion, Mama Manneh, director of the Njawara Agricultural Training Centre, said training of advocacy facilitators at community level aims to enhance and raise community awareness on the importance of empowering women vegetable groups to have access and control over land.
He said women should promote dialogue and networking to demand access and control over productive land resources, so as to contribute to the attainment of food security and nutritional development and by extension improve their income earnings.
The director noted that the project would support the registration of women groups’ farm land at the area council level, and thanked the Governor’s office and district authority for their support in the advocacy campaign.
The SOLIDAGRO project in the next three years would work with communities to promote regular environmental sanitation to improve health and well-being, he said.
The capacity development of farmers is fundamental to adoption of best agricultural practices to increase food security, he added.
Salieu Samba, advocacy officer at NATC, called on land owners to support women vegetable growers to have total ownership of the land. He said it would boost self-sufficiency, nutritional development and contribute to poverty reduction.
Ndey Adam Sanyang, ADWAC women rights coordinator, hailed the Belgian NGO for their support to NATC and ADWAC in providing women access and control over land.
She said the project would empower women to increase production, and diversify into productive agricultural resources to attain food security.
Ms Sanyang call on women to be proactive, to use networking and partnership in promoting the land rights campaign to bring about behavior change on land rights issues.
She said the strategy is in conformity with civil society organizations work to complement the government’s efforts to empower women.
Women should demand for their right to land for production, and they need to build partnership with relevant institutions for soil testing.
As advocacy facilitators, they should promote effective communication to enhance social mobilization on land rights, she added.
Mariama Dampha of Illiasa village thanked the community for their foresight in working to enhance women’s participation in vegetable production, citing land registration for total ownership of land.