The Team visited and engaged with beneficiaries and communities across six (6) districts in Grand Gedeh. Those districts include: Tchien, Konobo, Cavalla, B’hai, Putu, Gbao. The project is in 47 communities in these districts.
According to the Head of Mission, Deputy Minister for Research, Policy & Planning (MGCSP) Hon @Curtis V. Dorley expressed gratitude to the partners for their support in implementing the Liberia Women Empowerment Project. He re-echoed that the primary objectives of the project is to support women economic livelihood and enforce positive social norms within the communities while supporting girls retention in schools.
“This Field Mission is to assess the progress we have made so far as a project especially supporting the indicators under the AAID on women’s empowerment. This project is at the heart of the minister including all the women and girls including boys across the country”, Min. Dorley.
In Grand Gedeh, the LWEP has advanced progress under component 1a by recruiting and trained 54 Strategists (33females & 21males) to lead community activism; under Component 1b 7 Community based Agents have been recruited and trained, while 51 SASA Leaders have been trained, 6 district levels GRCs have been setup and training is ongoing.
Under component 2b which focuses on shifting norms to keep girls in school, a total of 100 students across 10 schools have benefitted from school fees payment; 10 school Clubs established and 34 students( 21 females & 13 males) WACE fees paid. For Component 3 which promote resilient livelihood services, a total of 333 have been profiled and 138 co-created (business plans developed); 119 Women Led Enterprises (89 IEs, 29 VSLAs and1 FBO) have been trained awaiting due diligence and grants disbursement to improve their small businesses and livelihoods. Additionally, 20 CBAs have been recruited, trained and deployed across the clustered communities for livelihood support and monitoring of grants usage.
The LWEP aims to provide US$18Million to 36,000 women-led businesses across six counties (Gbarpolu, Rivercess, Rural Montserrado, Bomi, CapeMount, Grand Gedeh) to improve their livelihoods.
The project intends to reach 267,200 people across the project counties through 5 of its components.
