Shape Live Foundation: An Update From Ghana – Part 2
Continue from Shape Live Foundation: An Update From Ghana – Part 1
Ghana – The month of March and May can be called “The breaking through Months “for the Shale Live Moringa Farm by successfully exporting 2 shipments of Moringa leaf powder to the U.S. The export also brought good news to many women farmers and their families by receiving good wages for processing the Moringa for export.
Few challenges experienced with U.S. Customs in the first shipments by delaying the shipment for verification rather opened door for the speedy delivery of the second shipment via FedEx. In month of March 2009, the Shape Live Foundation Farm received an order to supply 25.5 kilos of Moringa leaf powder to its partner company in the U.S.The Shape Live Foundation, a mother company of the Farm received payment via wire transfer from the partner and additional funds for treatment.
Prior to the order, many women farmers working in the Moringa farms were jobless due to the low patronage of the powder they produce. More and more people are planting Moringa trees in their homes, gardens and farms in the community, and this is really affecting the local sales of Moringa in the area. The 25.2 kilos order brought back about 17 women farmers to work.
It took 2 weeks to get the order completed and the income was shared among the workers even though the organization deducted part for administrative purposes. Many of the women invested their wages by hiring labor on their own farms to grown their corps while other also were able to support their family income to provide food for their homes.
Just after completing the order and wondering what to do next or where the next buyer of Moringa will come from, same company from the State yet gave us another order. This time it was much bigger order that transformed the entire farm and workers; a 100 kilos order was given. Additional funds were added for treatment and freight which were paid to the companies responsible for those tasks.
Both the leadership of Shape Lives Foundation and the women farmers agreed to rehabilitate their processing center with the second round of funds since most of that have established their farms with the wages received from the first order. The processing center floor was not cemented due to lack of funds so this was a real opportunity to give the floor a good look. The funds were mainly used to purchase send, stones, cement and hiring of labor to renovate the processing center floor and some minor finishing to some parts of the walls. About 25 women were also employed for processing of Moringa and received good wages to caster for their families
