One Hundred and Twenty-Eight women in the Builsa South District in the Upper East Region have been trained to improve their businesses by adding value to some raw products.

They were trained on best methods of rice parboiling/processing, shea butter extraction, malt processing, soap making, dawadawa processing and groundnut processing into products such as “kulikuli”, oil and “yaazi”.

The training was organised by the Business Advisory Centre (BAC) of the District Assembly with support from the Japanese Social Development Fund (JSDF).

Speaking to the beneficiaries, Mr Yaw Agyapong, the officer in charge of data management from the regional office of JSDF urged the women to take the training seriously and endeavour to utilise the funds that would be given to them to expand their local businesses in order to reap the full benefits of the programme.

For his part, the District Chief Executive, Mr Daniel Kwame Gariba said women formed the core unit of every household and therefore empowering them to undertake income generating activities that would make them financially independent would not benefit them alone but would lead to an improvement in the livelihood of the entire household.

He said the training would equip the women with the necessary knowledge and skills to expand and improve upon their small-scale businesses and also add value to their products through proper packaging to enable them compete effectively with similar products in the open market.

The DCE admonished the beneficiaries not to use the grant that would be given to them to settle debts or drink alcohol but use it for income generating activities that would improve their livelihood and those of their entire households.