What's your Ghanaian name? by Barbara Crowther

Here in Ghana it’s common, especially among those who speak Akan, to be called by the day of the week on which you were born. So today I learnt that, as I was born on a Tuesday, my Ghanaian name is Abena. What’s yours? Find out the day you were born here and then check out your Ghanaian name here.

 











So, Abena was how I introduced myself to the small community of Mensakrom, who greeted us in turn with vibrant music and singing, as well as a taste of their local palm wine. Mensakrom is one of the 1400 village societies that make up Ghana’s foremost Fairtrade co-operative, Kuapa Kokoo.

Kuapa is well known to many Fairtraders as the only cocoa farmers’ co-op that owns their own 100% Fairtrade chocolate brand, Divine Chocolate, now sold in both the UK and US. Over the last 18 months, Kuapa have increased their total Fairtrade sales each year from roughly 5,000 tonnes to 20,000 tonnes as a result of Cadbury Dairy Milk going Fairtrade. The increased premiums from all of these sales have meant that Kuapa has now got more people providing agricultural training to farmers, a mobile team of doctors travelling round the communities (they’ve visited 1000 farmers already), and this year they were able to triple the end of harvest bonus payment to every single one of their members. 

I was also delighted to meet Kuapa Kokoo’s first ever woman President, Christiana Ohene Agyare, who was elected in a landslide victory at Kuapa’s recent AGM, attended by more than 2500 representatives of the village groups (thanks to Divine Chocolate for this pic of the inaugural moment). She told me that what she hopes to achieve in her four-year term of office is for the volume of quality cocoa to ‘grow and grow and grow’ and is confident her own crop this year will be 25% up on last year. She also hopes to empower all the women cocoa growers both in their village communities and at every level of Kuapa’s work. Her own election seems a pretty good sign they're already well on the way to doing that.  In fact in everything they do, from cocoa growing to running democratic and inclusive village cooperatives, Kuapa aim to be 'papa paa' - the best of the best.

Shortly before I left, I was chatting to 17-year-old Stephen Tawiah who wanted people to know the difference Kuapa is making in the villages. Stephen wants to be a journalist – and has sent you all a short video message here.