Trying to reach the Suma Traditional Area which lies in the
northwest corner of Ghana's Brong Ahafo region is not easy. At some
point an hour and a half before one reaches the capital, Suma
Ahenkro, the tarmac ends and a very bumpy dirt road begins.

To the left hand of what serves as a road and just a stone's
throw away is the border with Côte D'Ivoire. There is a
remoteness here and with it a certain isolation reinforced by the
lack of proper roads that inhibit business development.

Consisting of 30 small towns and villages, 80 per cent of the
population of Suma Traditional Area is made up of subsistence
farmers with the burden of work and responsibility for feeding the
family lying with the woman. With the exception of schools, there
is little else in terms of facilities and certainly not much
opportunity for finding work in the area, making labour plentiful
and very cheap.

It is because of this, the resulting poverty and perhaps the
proximity of the border with Côte D'Ivoire filling heads with
dreams of a new, riches-filled life in Europe that are significant
factors to emigration from the area. No-one here knows exactly how
many people have left.

But looking around in Suma Ahenkro, there is a visible lack of
young men amidst the people going about their daily business. Lots
of old men and women, children and mothers, young and old. But few
young men. They tend to leave to either to find work in Ghana's
urban areas or abroad – if they are lucky enough to make it.
In April this year, two of the village boys drowned en route to the
Canaries from Morocco, the latest casualties.

It is partly to prevent this heartache and that of those who do
manage to make it to Europe and who soon realize that the streets
there are not paved with gold but much pain and suffering, and
partly to lessen the suffering of the women in the area, that
Belinda Comfort Damoah felt pushed to act.

Alias Nana Akwamma Trepefo Odiakotene, Belinda is no ordinary
person. She is the Queen Mother of the Suma Traditional Area (STA)
although she is now a resident of Lecco, near the northern Italian
city of Milan, and another recipient of IOM support under its
Migration for Development in Africa (MIDA) programme for Ghana. It
encourages African migrant diaspora to contribute to the
development of their country of origin through skills transfer and
investment in enterprise with co-funding from partners including
IOM.

Belinda's successful proposal put forward in the second phase of
the MIDA Ghana programme funded by the Italian government is an
ambitious plan to revolutionize agriculture in Suma and with it,
provide decent new job opportunities for people and improve the
lives of the women there.

With thousands of acres of land lying fallow in the area,
Belinda has created an agricultural cooperative society supported
by the Suma Rural Bank as well as IOM with plans to utilize 500
hectares in the cultivation of much prized cash crops such as
cashew and teak as well as vegetables and fruit such as mangoes,
cassava and okra. Traders from India are already beating the path
to Suma for the well-loved nut and the cooperative could soon be
selling their produce directly to the Indians.

She bemoans the current waste of subsistence farming and has
plenty of ideas for diversification. Take the cashews, for example,
which grow well and easily in the area with the district in which
Suma lies being the biggest producer of cashew nuts in Ghana.

"There are many things we can do with the cashew but we only
take the seed and sell it. While the fruit, we can have juice or
can conserve it or make marmalade," she explains.

By also organizing local farmers into cooperatives and with
plans to access adequate storage facilities, the current lack of
which forces farmers into selling any little surplus produce at
ridiculously low prices during glut periods, she's hoping that
agriculture here can become large scale and a real business. It's
an ambition backed by all the traditional chiefs.

Speaking at the official launch of the Suma Agricultural
Cooperative Society accompanied by much pomp and ceremony, Nana
Adane Okofrobour-Krontihene, Paramount King of the Suma Traditional
Area, reiterated support through the provision of land held in
trust by the chiefs and queen mothers for large-scale farming.

"With arable land and energetic work-force, there is no
over-emphasizing the agricultural potential of the Suma Traditional
Area," he said.

The women in Suma Ahenkro are ecstatic about the project.
Belinda has already organized them into a baking cooperative which
provides bread for the whole village.

"The burden of life is on the women here. They do everything.
They provide everything. The economic contribution of the men is
negligible. The women are really happy and excited about this
development. They feel very strongly about organizing a
cooperative," says Martin Adane, Advisor to the Suma Agricultural
Cooperative Society.

Belinda is passionate about making a difference to the lives of
the people here. She'd left her home in 1984 for Libya where she
worked as a nurse for five years before trying to reach the United
Kingdom. But she ended up as a regularized migrant in Italy. Since
the birth of her last child in 1992, she's been working as an
auxiliary nurse and is now taking exams to be a general nurse.

There is a purpose. Not content to revolutionize the livelihood
potential of Suma, she's been instrumental to the building of a
primary health care centre in Suma Ahenkro. At some point soon,
she's planning to come to Suma for several months at a time,
allowing her to contribute her nursing skills at the health
centre.

And then there is this other passion. A good education for all
children. She's already supporting 80 children in the village to
attend school. But the building at the moment is a collection of
kiosks and with the number of children now going to the school
increasing, she is trying urgently to raise funds for a proper
building for them.

"I have learnt a lot. I can help them, the women especially. I
want to bring all the knowledge that I have acquired in Europe to
help my people because I know they need me. They need my
knowledge," says Belinda. No-one would dispute her. Otherwise, who
knows, heads might roll…