Mama SWOPA

At SWOPA, we are fortunate enough to have the organisation's founding woman with us, to direct and advise as well as remind us as to why SWOPA exists. Madam Melanie Kasise herself is an interesting character to say the least. My reflections upon her and her story began after we appeared on radio Savannah in Tamale where she impressed all in her performance on live radio. After us volunteers spoke our part about SWOPA, promoting it to settlements throughout the Northern Region, Mama Kasise took over as the voice of SWOPA. 

Dressed in bright traditional Ghanaian clothing, an ornate pearl necklace and large earrings, her presence and amplified voice took over the studio at once. Her passion for the organisation and its intentions to provide additional income for the ladies of Sirigu and protect the unique traditional arts and crafts of the Upper Eastern region did, as I imagined, resonate with all listeners. Mama Kasise's story is a unique one in itself. Coming from a family in our tiny village of Sirigu near the border of Burkina Faso, her mother produced pottery in order to send her daughter to school. She became the first woman in Sirigu to be formally educated, after she completed her teacher's training at a college.

Mama Kasise spent many years teaching throughout Ghana, and authored her own book on the traditional arts of the Upper Eastern region. As well as teaching and writing, she enjoyed adventures such as travelling around the U.S. to learn about democracy for her country and visiting infamous landmarks such as the White House. Her teaching skills extended abroad also, as she spent some time in Israel learning teaching methods from abroad. Despite her travels to far and remote places, Mama Kasise's focus has always been on her own home, Sirigu. For myself, this is the most inspirational aspect of SWOPA's founder, is that after all of her adventures she returned to her birthplace in order to encourage its development. In 1997 she founded SWOPA and since its birth, it has caused the tiny and remote village of Sirigu to gain international attention. SWOPA allows the local women of Sirigu to gain additional income and helps pay bills such as their children's own school fees.

Us volunteers have learnt a great deal from Mama Kasise. Not only has her passion for our project encouraged us with our work and given us a greater understanding on the wider impact of SWOPA, but she has taught us the importance of using our skills to help others. Ultimately, her world travels and broad knowledge was used to develop her own home town and support its women, just as her mother all those years ago supported her.

- Caitlin

Our work at Swopa so far

Our work at SWOPA so far

We have been working with an organisation called SWOPA (Sirigu Women's Organisation for Pottery and Arts). SWOPA’s main aim is to empower women by supporting them to earn an income. They achieve this by encouraging members of the community to make baskets, pottery, paintings and many other crafts; and then sell them on to tourists that come and visit the compound. This is beneficial to the women of Sirigu because they can do this alongside their daily routines and create extra income for themselves and their families. 

Sirigu used to be a hub for tourism until recently; the ebola crisis and many other factors severely reduced tourism in the area. This is why International Service decided to start a project here. The project’s overall aim is to bring tourism back to the area and help streamline and make the business more profitable.

In our group we have been working on a sales strategy report; trying to find other outlets that we can sell our products to. We tried to get in contact with many other businesses but found that this was very hard as there is only so much information you can gather on the internet about shops etc in the local area that sell different products. We would have loved to travel around the area to find these places but the rules that we were set by International Service dictate we cannot travel. So to overcome this problem we now have 3 days where we can go to nearby cities and do the research. Hopefully we can find some appropriate outlets and set up business links for SWOPA. This will be challenging in just 3 days but we will do our best.

Another activity we have been undertaking is more about streamlining the business. We have organised and rearranged the whole stock room and come up with a method for SWOPA to manage their stock. This has gone well and we are hoping to start training the staff members on the new methods we have employed. The stock system was a problem which was identified by the director of SWOPA so we wanted to find an appropriate resolution.

 

(This is a picture of the oldest member at SWOPA) 

By Gideon and Joe  

N.B. I claim full copyright to both of these pictures and do not wish for ICS/ International Service to share, distribute or use them in any way other than use in the blog. Joseph D’Ambra.