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The Hunger Project-Ghana Celebrates Community Efforts To End Their Own Hunger And Poverty

July 21, 2016

ACCRA, GHANA – July 18—The Hunger Project-Ghana will celebrate this week the graduation of three clusters of rural communities that have achieved the targets they set for declaring their self-reliance, meaning they have demonstrated their capacity to take charge of their own development. This monumental accomplishment will be marked by epicenter celebrations, a week-long donor trip to the epicenters and a press conference with Åsa Skogström Feldt, President and CEO of The Hunger Project, and Samuel Afrane, Country Director of The Hunger Project-Ghana.

Through The Hunger Project’s Epicenter Strategy— clusters of rural villages are mobilized into dynamic centers over a period of about eight years. During this time, communities launch and run their own programs to address health and nutrition, education, food security, microfinance and livelihoods, women’s empowerment, advocacy and awareness, and climate change and land productivity.

AtuobikromAkotekrom and Nsuta-Aweregya Epicenters in the Eastern Region of Ghana have now graduated to a phase of “sustainable self-reliance,” which means that these communities have demonstrated the confidence, capacity and skills to act as agents of their own development.

This marks the first time that communities across our 118 epicenters in Africa have graduated to self-reliance based on a comprehensive set of about 50 diverse targets—such as portion of households living below the poverty line or in moderate or severe hunger, to the presence of sanitary latrines and use of improved farming methods—that measure their progress and assess their path to sustainability.

Community members of these epicenters have affirmed multiple local partnerships, created funding streams from revenue-generating activities and established gender-balanced leadership structures to support sustainable growth.

“This achievement is the culmination of a long-term partnership and commitment between communities and The Hunger Project, and we are so thrilled and proud of what our community partners have accomplished” said Åsa. “This is an example of how a strategy can achieve locally owned vision and goals and foster a culture of self-determination in which the community itself is the driver of continued change.”

To honor this historic achievement, Hunger Project investors and staff from around the world are gathering in Ghana to participate in the celebrations from Sunday July 17 – Friday, July 22. During their visit, investors will interact with the leadership and community partners in the Eastern Region.

A press conference will be held in Accra on Friday, July 22 at 9:30 a.m. at the Ellking Hotel.

High-resolution photographs of the celebration will be available at www.thp.org/press.

Press Coverage:

16 Communities in Birim South benefit from The Hunger Project

Hunger Project CEO installed Akotekrom development queenmother

Hunger Project celebrates victory over poverty

Eastern Region communities celebrate self-reliance over hunger

The Hunger Project hands over projects to assembly