Globally, more than 1.2 billion people do not get enough food to meet their basic nutritional needs and sub-Saharan Africa is not left out. 

But the situation in Tempane District of Ghana cannot be over emphasized. 

According to World Vision Ghana in 2019, 57% of households in Garu and Tempane Districts experience one or more ‘hungry months’ in a year. This situation affected more than 15% of children going hungry and this affected both their health and education. To contribute to solving the problem, World Vision, Tempane Area programme adopted the Household Food Security & Resilience Technical Programme which is aimed at ensuring all children especially the most vulnerable and their families improve on household food security. 

Statistics available at the Garu-Tempane cluster revealed that about 1,400,000 beneficiaries made up of 684,726 children and 715,274 adults had improved household food security and resilience through the programme. 

Farmers in Tempane District over the years go through drudgeries in their farming activities due to lack of dams or water bodies. This causes most of the farmers especially the youth to migrate to Southern Ghana for ‘Galamsey’ and other non-existing jobs. 

To help address this, World Vision, Garu-Tempane Area Programme, in 2019 constructed a dam at the Burankoun community in the Tempane District to help households to undertake all-year-round farming. Mr Rexford Bugre, the Cluster Manager for the Garu-Tempane Area Programme of World Vision Ghana indicated in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that the Christian and Child-focused identified organization compels to promote more resilient livelihoods so that families and communities would be able to sustain their own well-being and better care for their children. 

Mr Bugre told the GNA that given the difficulty farmers go through to get water into their farmlands, the Area Programme supported the farmers with a solar-powered mechanized pump that can pump 9000 litres of water every day to enable them regularly water their crops to meet the minimum water requirements. Again, they were supported to fence 64 acres of irrigable land area for dry season vegetable production. 

Master Abraham Laar Jemong second-year pupil, at the Tubong Junior High School in a beneficiary community, said the impact of the solar pump donated by World Vision, Garu-Tempane Area Programme has been helpful, indicating that for the past two years, he and his siblings had always helped their father to water his two-acre onions farm every day after school and during weekends by using the watering cans. 

Master Patrick Kombat a 15-year-old Junior High School pupil and his Father Mr Johnson Kombat are benefiting from the intervention, stating that they use to carry water from long distance to water their crops during the dry season but for the intervention of WVI in creating the dam, they no longer scramble for water for their crops. 

The JHS student recounts his ordeal and said due to the weight of the water cans, he always gets tired after watering and most times, he is not able to do his homework or study at home and sometimes do not usually wake up early to go to school. 

”Thank you World Vision for lessening my burden, Watering using this pump has become fun and easy. I only need to dip the pump into any available water and start watering the onions in the garden. I am so glad this has come to help me and all other children in this community”, he mentioned. 

Miss Fati Duut final year JHS pupil at Tubong and her mother Madam Felicia Duut expressed their satisfaction with the creation of the dam and the Mechanized pump, saying Before this facility, “I use to spend about 2-3 hours each day watering the crops in the garden but with this pump, I am able to use less than 30 minutes for this same piece of land. “I will now be able to have more time for my studies at home. I am hopeful that this solar pump available it will help me to learn to become a doctor in future. God bless you World Vision for your timely intervention”. 

---GNA