Community Identified & Driven
Development Projects
Ghana Beyond Subsistence applies our teaching-learning-connecting model to rural development. All our projects are determined based upon expressed community need and interest. For more than 20 years, our team has been building and maintaining relationships of trust with individuals, groups, and communities across the Volta Region. Together we assess local needs, develop modes of knowledge transfer, and collaborate to implement joint projects.
Microloan & Savings Groups
Since 2003, GBS has developed revolving loan plans "microloan and savings" (MLS) for fourteen groups of smallholder, subsistence farmers, and petty traders. These groups are mostly comprised of women farmers and small merchants in eight towns across the Volta Region.
Where women farmers and merchants are not able to rely on access to the traditional loan and savings programs offered by financial institutions, GBS makes it possible for the people in our groups to purchase agricultural inputs and trade goods on credit and repay their loans upon harvest or sale.
Agricultural Maker Space
The Togbe Kotoku XI Agric Maker Space will be a multipurpose facility that boosts opportunity and innovation for the smallholder farmers and petty traders in the GBS network/ Co-operative microloan and savings (MLS) groups in the towns of Kpenoe, Takla, Hodzo, and Akoefe, and the community of Kpenoe.
This maker space is being designed and built based upon expressed farmer, trader, and community needs. It will be expandable by phases and will start with the ground floor of a multi-story design with the capability of expanding up as needs determine and resources are secured.
Digital Connectivity
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Because digital connectivity and access to contemporary computing technology is critical for the success of project-based and experiential learning, GBS is bringing high-speed internet to six junior high and six primary schools in and around Ho. Each computer lab will be outfitted with computers, video, and audio projection.
Compared with US classroom technology, this seems and sounds like a small step. Yet, compared with the present situation in Ho, Ghana, it will be revolutionary and life changing for students and teachers.