Gariziegu, (N/R), Oct. 7, GNA - A 126 million cedi agro-processing plant has been inaugurated at Gariziegu in the Tolon/Kumbungu District aimed to empower women in four communities to reduce poverty. The Rotary Clubs of Canada and Tamale supported the women with micro credit facility whose profits had been ploughed back to finance the project.

The two rotaries were involved in providing credit to the women to enable them to develop small- scale businesses had also distributed drip irrigation equipment to them for vegetable production in the dry seasons.

The Clubs had provided health kits for rural clinics as well as educational materials to assist in teaching and learning and education curriculum development at Tamale Teachers Training College. Inaugurating the project, the Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface, said the government was managing the economy prudently to get the country into the middle-income brackets by the year 2015. He said: "This has to start with our rural people whose roles in our developmental effort is sometimes hardly recognized". Alhaji Boniface urged the Tamale Rotary Club to expand its activities more in education because the region was lagging behind in the enrollment of school children.

" I therefore called on you to do well to reverse its by supplying textbooks, teaching aids and equipment for the schools to help reduce the ignorance that sometimes breeds civil strife in the region". He said.

The Regional Minister noted that Rotarians had fostered greater understanding between nations by simply reaching out to their neighbours and brought relief to regions plagued by disasters such famine and persecution.

He said Rotary Club International has also wage a relentless border wars against the spread of the poliovirus and commended it for the good works it had been doing for the benefit of society. Oct. 08 05