AMURT-EL is the ladies-managed section of AMURT. In the Volta Region of Ghana, our partner AMURT has brought clinics, safe drinking water through community empowerment programs starting in 1990. AMURT has built a dam, a water treatment plant, and a water tower in Mafi-Zongo because they were badly affected by Guinea Worm. The project expanded to provide water for 43 villages.
In the clinic in Mafi-Seva (started by AMURT in 2002 and handed over to the government in 2012) the nurses observed several cases of malnourishment amongst the children. The main cause of their poor diet is that the villagers use to sell all their vegetables and consume mostly maiz dishes with pepper. Our nurses tried to educate them to add in their daily diets popular local wild herbs and leaves, such as moringa, contombre, baobab, etc. However, we sadly observed that the new generation of housewives ignored our advice. Therefore AMURT-EL started to approach young children who already cook for their families (as a matter of fact, 9-year-old girls are already able to cook for the whole family while their parents go to the farm). We visited schools to stress the importance of eating vegetables in interactive events with teachers and students. In a primary school, it was so difficult for the kids to mention the name of vegetables they knew that a teacher tried to help the kids and suggested “egg” as a vegetable! After school, we distribute meals made of nutritious local ingredients to reinforce what the kids have just learned. This project became therefore a short-term project by relieving hunger and at the same time a long-term one, once by educating children they would impact the lives of their families. We also opened our own Preschool but it closed after 3 years for the lack of financial resources.
“[societies ] are not as developed as we should be. Why? One of the reasons is that we have kept women confined within the walls of their homes, resulting in the progress of only 50% of the population — the males. And as only the men are progressing, they will have to carry the load of 50% of the population. Thus the speed of progress is reduced. Ideally, women should also move with their own strength and with the same speed as their male counterparts. In the process of movement, if they feel pain in their legs, if they fall on their faces, they should be physically lifted up. The fact is that we must move together in unison with all.”
— Shrii P. R. Sarkar, Two Wings in the Importance of Society
Lotus Children's Center 