Perthshire appeal for African farmers

Oct 13 2009 by Andrew Welsh, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

SUPPORTERS of a charity that helps improve lives in the developing world are seeking backing from residents in the Perth area.

Volunteers from the Friends of Wumenu Community Farm are set to hold a fund-raising ceilidh in Kinross to pay for trucks loaded with donated goods to be transported to a needy rural community in West Africa.

Graham Holden, who is the charity’s senior recycling officer at its area base in Crook of Devon, told the PA the project aims to revitalise agriculture and self-help initiatives in a rural area of Ghana’s Volta region.

This involves spending part of each year working with farmers and motivating unemployed youngsters in and around the village of Wumenu, close to Volta’s capital, Ho.

The charity was founded by Gift Amu-Logotse, a part-time lecturer in world music at Edinburgh’s Napier University, who was born and brought up in a shantytown in Accra, on Ghana’s southern coast.

He regularly tours the UK providing workshops to schools and community groups in return for donations towards the development of Wumenu community farm.

“We recapture recyclable waste and ship it over to Ghana,” said Mr Holden yesterday.

“Local residents contact us and we go round to their houses and collect their unwanted goods.

“We have already sent one container over and completed a social enterprise scheme, now we are encouraging our friends to sponsor a tree to be planted on the farm.”

Secondhand goods sent to Africa by the project include clothes, blankets, medical equipment, computers, books, toys, and farming items.

Before the donations make their way to Africa, volunteers are involved in tasks such as refurbishing bicycles and tools, packing and logging goods and loading up the charity’s trailers.

International supporters in Ghana play a part by providing training in youth work, agriculture and electrical reconditioning and repair work.

Lectures in bricklaying, building works and painting and decorating are also laid on for the peasants in Wumenu.

“We have created lots of jobs for people over there,” declared Mr Holden, whose day job is with Perth and Kinross Council’s environmental services.

“Through our efforts, they can plant their own crops and have a continual source of food.

“Then they are able to sell it at the local markets and have money. The point is to make people self-sustainable through the goods we have sent them.”

The charity will be holding an African-themed ceilidh at the Windelstrae Hotel in Kinross on October 24 to help raise £4300 needed to pay for a supply of fresh drinking water at Wumenu.

Tickets for the event, which starts at 7.30pm, are available from the Dog House in Kinross, or by calling Graham Holden on 07901 693866.