SUCCESS STORY: INITIATIVE

Between December 2015 and May 2016, WHW Girls Clubs members were given fruit trees to nurture as a way of learning how to be responsible and responsive to issues that affect their lives. Girls Club members were taught to consider and represent the fruit trees as their dreams and therefore were tasked to always reflect and adhere to principles of plant growth as fundamental precepts for realizing their dreams. Moreover, Girls Club members were given these fruit trees to grow as supplements for food and vitamin minerals.

Girls Club members in Aduamoa D/A JHS received eight fruit trees made up of four seedlings   each mango and orange that were successfully planted in May 2017. The members were alarmed when five of the eight trees were vandalized by unknown assailants in July 2017 and therefore provided special fencing to guard the remaining three plants.

In April 2018, when Girls Club members (2018 Graduands) realized that the Ministry of Road and Urban Development (Ghana) was going to construct a road from Aduamoa to Aduman that would affect the parcel of land housing the fruit trees, they quickly sought assistance from the school authorities to transplant the fruit trees which had grown and firmly rooted in the soil

The students provided animal manure and building blocks as fence for transplanting. In May 2018, the students with their teacher-facilitator successfully transplanted the remaining three fruit trees which are about 25 months old. Unfortunately one fruit tree died as a result with the remaining two alive and growing steadily.

Girls Club members have learned from this experience that they need to be current, observant, proactive and cooperative in life especially on their education and health. They have also gained the experience of going extra mile to do the impossible by changing their environment and also by turning threats to opportunities in order to achieve their dreams. With the teacher-facilitators coordinating this activity, exited Girls Club members have left legacy of Girls Club members protecting one another from harm.  

Written by Abraham Kwasi Nkrumah (Program Officer, WHW)