Moringa Project in Ghana
BACKGROUND OF MORINGA PROJECT
ECO VITA, the U.S based Health Food supply company, has created and implemented Moringa Project to create sustainable communities in Africa, South America, and Southern Asia where Moringa is grown. We work with a number of NGOs across those nations to help the local communities to be self-sufficient and self-functioning with cultivation of their given resources.
By doing so, we can receive quality product from a reliable source and enhance a business while those communities can experience autonomy. In other word, purchasing our Moringa product provides direct assistance and incentives to these communities cultivating Moringa to help putting food on table, sending children to school and create jobs. As of 2010, Moringa project has generated more than 100 supporters throughout the world and acknowledged by the United Nation Global Compact.
Through the Moringa Project, ECO VITA has partnered with the Shape Live Foundation, a NGO inGhana, to be the supplier for Moringa. Shape Live Foundation employs women who are living in impoverished conditions. We have succeeded in processing Moringa into powder form in accordance with the highest sanitation standards by collaborating with a research institute and radiation center inGhana. Importing Moringa in powder form instead of raw leaves is aimed to help add economic and brand value to the suppliers.
PROJECT AIM
- To provide needy families with fuel- efficient cooking stoves to reduce the use of wood and plant trees to combat global warming and improve labor conditions in the local area, particularly female workers. We believe that this project directly or indirectly implemented the Global Compact principles in each of the four issue areas such as human right, labor, environment, and anti-corruption.
- To reduce global warming through planting Moringa Tree in Ghana. This project encourages communities to plant trees to help cool the environment as contributing to the reduction of global warming. Since the stoves uses charcoal which is made from trees, we understood that large amount of tress are cut off for this purpose. Therefore this tree planting project will be helping to replace threes that would be used to produce the charcoal. We choose Moringa tree because of its benefits. In addition to planting Moringa, other parts of Moringa trees such as its leaves are also to be used for meals at household.
INTRODUCTION OF THE PROJECT
The typical stove used for cooking in many household in Ghana is not much better than a Stone Age campfire; it is poorly insulated, inefficiently burns a lot of wood and it spews disease-causing particulates into the air. In addition, the weekly cost for wood helps keep numerous families in poverty.
The solution is to provide needy families with better cooking stoves. These stoves reduce or eliminate the need for wood thus reducing the demand for logging forests, reduce poverty via several ways- reduces starvation through increased crop production.
Moringa project intends to provide fuel- efficient cooking stoves to impoverished families that cannot afford to buy at cash price in the market. In return, these families shall plant trees and nurture them to grow either at their gardens, farms and other designated places to protect the environment and reduce global warming.
WHY THIS FUEL-EFFICIENT COOK STOVE PROJECT IS NECESSARY
Half the world’s population—3 billion people—cook with wood, charcoal, dung, coal or agricultural residues on simple traditional stoves or open fires. Breathing the smoke from those stoves causes a stunning variety of acute and chronic illnesses—pneumonia, emphysema, cataracts, lung cancer, bronchitis, cardiovascular disease, and low birth weight—all contributing to an estimated 1.9 million premature deaths every year—more than double the global death toll of malaria, according to World Health Organization statistics. Indeed, the WHO estimates harmful cook stove smoke to be the fourth worst overall health risk in developing countries. More efficient cook stoves are the accepted solution.
- As these stoves use less wood, loggers have less demand so less trees will be logged.
- Families pay to purchase wood as cooking fuel. With less need for wood, family income rises.
- Typical stoves release clouds of toxic smoke into the home as there is no ‘chimney’ or exhaust tube. These stoves drastically reduce particulates, which mean that the families receiving them will have better health than otherwise.
- For women who cook and sell, these stoves allow to cook faster and spend less money on fuel. As a result, increasing family income and reducing poverty.
PROJECT IMPLEMANTATION AND THE MESSUREMENT OF OUTCOME
Moringa project shall purchase the stoves from dealers in Ghana and distribute to selected beneficiaries considering the need and their willingness to plant and nurture at least 3 trees in return.
For those families that might not be able to plant trees due to certain circumstances beyond their control, a small token amount shall be charged. These funds shall be used to purchase seeds and planting materials for other families to plant trees on their behalf. As fund came through the order of Moringa powder by ECO VITA , The Shape Lives Foudatio purchased and distributed the stoves along side with Moringa seedlings to beneficiries families . The beneficiries shall be taken through training to understand why they have to use fuel-efficient stoves and the need to protect the enviroment by planting trees.
