I want to use this opportunity to thank the team at GTB bank and CSRinaction for been there for the women of Adeke community in Benue state.

At Do Take action a not for profit foundation I cofounded, today I want to share with a you how GTBbank came through for us and together we impacted the lives of over 3000 women in Adeke community.

Meet Dorothy Akende, an indigenous DO Grassroot Development Champion (GDC), she saw a very pressing need in her community.

Despite the fact that technology has greatly reduced the amount of time it takes to grind large amounts of grains, in Adeke a village in Benue state, over 3000 women spend 1-2 hours daily and over 11,000 hours cumulatively per month of their time and energy crushing maize, millet and beans flour (staple meals) using the local grinding stone, an activity that would take just 3 minutes with the use of a grinding machine. They opted for this manual option because to get to the nearest grinding mill they would have to walk for about 1 hour to 1 hour 30minutes.

Based off of the need analysis gathered from Adeke Village, we discovered that 90% of these local women are farmers and so, what this means, is that every day these women lose very valuable time that could be spent on their farmlands for increased food productivity, run their businesses and earn a sustainable income. It’s also worthy of note that 67% of the 110 local needs assessment respondents noted that poverty is the most pressing issue in the community.

 

We then came up with the idea of setting up grinding mills at strategic points in the community to tackle this problem. These mills were envisioned to be operated as a business and run by 4 women on behalf of the community. The vision was that with this plan in place, through the income generated by the grinding mills, more mills will be set up in more locations in a continuum until the lives of a larger number of women in Adeke community get impacted by this development.

From our calculated estimates, the provision of this infrastructure as simple or small scale as it seems will contribute majorly to reduce the physical labour, waste and time impact of grinding on the stone, giving this women more time for other productive endeavors.

At about that time, Guaranty Trust Bank(GTBank) was launching a CSR initiative – Simple Change, Big Impact, designed to fund innovative solutions for communities, working with strategic support from Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) Bank over a space of 3 months’ project, despite the unique challenges that faced the project.

  • 10 grinding machines have successfully been installed in 4 strategic locations in the community.
  • A one-day financial literacy workshop designed to empower women farmers in the community with the financial management skills they need to increase productivity and efficiency was successfully held.

 

The whole process a joint effort, that saw the active involvement of key stakeholders in the community like the elders, youths (who actually built the mounting site where the grinding machines would be installed and operated from.) and chiefs in the execution of the project to foster responsibility and ownership of the project that can further ensure the maintenance and sustainability of the grinding mills.

This project increased the productivity and efficiency of over 3000 women in Adeke community, empowered selected beneficiaries with entrepreneurship and financial management skills and inspired collaboration between women, youths and stakeholders of the community in driving sustainable development.

Ultimately, this contributed to boosting the economy of the community and enabled them to lead a better quality of life.

 

When we look at the remarkable number of beneficiaries in Adeke community, GTBank’s model for driving impact is certainly one to be emulated, especially by organizations looking to drive sustainable impact CSR projects that can boost economies and improve livelihood outcomes for communities across the nation. Not only that, the model is brilliant, in the sense that they leveraged on the power in partnership which is actually a global blueprint for achieving sustainable development.

Once again thank you GTBank and the team at CSRinAction for coming through for us and impacting the lives of women in Adeke community through the Simple change big impact challenge.