Agriculture and Charity

1. PERSONAL PROFILE
Dzifah Deborah Tamakloe is a Mphil. Agricultural Economics student
from the University of Ghana. She is the Founder and CEO of Charis
Touch Foundation, an NGO that seeks to provide support to
amputees, the sick, orphans and street children. Dzifah grew up in
the Baptist School Complex and Orphanage, BASCO located at the
Eastern Region of Ghana. Spearing through life challenges, she has
risen to be a writer and a motivational speaker. Dzifah has the
passion to reach to the people of the world especially, the less
privileged with God’s passion and love.
Deborah has over 3 years’ worth of knowledge and experience,
developing and conducting academic, business and non-
governmental researches for a variety of industries including The
Hunger Project-Ghana, Charis Touch Foundation, University of
Ghana-Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness department.
Deborah is highly conscientious in follow through, planning and
organization of new ideas and readily accept new challenges.
Deborah demonstrates exceptional communication skills with
extensive public speaking presentation experience. Her well-
developed capacity to build trusting relationships, enthuse, motivate
and encourage collaboration from stakeholders, staff, and
management, has proven her to be an invaluable asset to multiple
projects.

2. PROJECT SUMMARY
• My bitter experience growing up in an orphanage home
led to my dreaming of contributing to change the
negative narrative associated with orphanage homes
given the opportunity.
• Growing up, I have had a first-hand feel of the harsh
realities of the difficulty faced by orphanages: the
inadequacy or absence of funds and other provisions
made life quite unbearable for inmates.
• Information later gathered from other orphanages
buttressed my worldview of the plight of orphanages in
Africa and strengthened my resolve to contribute to
changing the status quo for the better.

3. PROJECT SUMMARY
• It is always an uphill task taking hard decisions on how to
ration limited resources between adequate food talk less of
nutrition, proper education, proper healthcare, among other
necessities all of which play major roles in the survival and
overall wellbeing of inmates.
• Considering that the homes do not have the power to
determine how much and how consistent supplies come in
from benevolent donors made me thing deeply on how
some ‘miracle could be performed’ to curb the problem.
• The daunting question then was “How do we take charge
somehow?” Operation plant your food came to mind. Given
the necessary start-up kit and technical support, orphanages
could provide labour to produce. In order not to make it look
traumatic, it had to be packaged in a way that would be
loved by the inmates.

4. PROJECT SUMMARY
• I can attest to the fact that, orphanage homes on the African
continent are dependent on inconsistent foreign donations
and struggle to provide their kids with proper nutrition,
education, and care. Due to the occasional donations in our
part of the world, homes are forced to choose between
feeding their children a well-balanced diet, supporting their
education or employing a sufficient number of caretakers.
• As a result, children in orphanage homes especially on the
African continent feed on starch-based diets with little access
to protein and other micro-nutrients and have higher rates of
malnutrition than the rest of their communities. These
children often experience stunted physical and cognitive
growth along with reduced energy, immunity and
concentration.
• Besides, orphanage homes are often overlooked as
institutions for the implementation of any kind of solutions.
The initiative therefore, seeks to revive the passion of
agriculture in orphanage homes especially in all the regions of
Ghana and beyond

5. AGRIHELP
PROJECT

6. Agricultural growth is the key (major driver) to
poverty reduction in most African countries

7. Donations to orphanages reduces after festive
seasons(Christmas and Easter)

8. Growing up in an orphanage home, I can attest to this fact.
The orphanage home I grew up in (located in the Eastern Region of Ghana)

9. Food shortages in orphanage homes
Most kids in orphanage homes go to bed half hungry everyday

10. World population to reach 8.5 billion by 2030
8.5 billion
2030

11. Effects of future population growth on Agriculture
Loss of arable land to urbanization

12. Effects of future population growth on Agriculture
Increase in demand for food

13. Post harvest losses

14. AGRIHELP
(Linking Agriculture and Charity)
All of the alarming population issues coupled with post-
harvest losses and my childhood experience birthed the
Agri-Help project. A sustainable means of livelihood to
address food security problems in orphanage homes

15. GOAL OF PROJECT
To ensure continuous supply of food in all
orphanage homes in Ghana by 2025. We seek to
diversify crop production with livestock rearing.
This is in fulfilment of SDGs 2

16. Sustainable Development: Goal 2
End hunger, achieve food security
and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

17. 0BJECTIVES
The project’s objectives are mainly but not limited to:
• Ensuring that orphanages in Ghana are food secured
• Training these orphans to take up farming alongside their
career in life
• Engaging in an awareness creation, civil education lobbying
and advocacy programs for the enhancement of the
welfare of these individuals.
Vision
Agri-Help Project would be the leading agriculture charitable
project for ensuring food security in orphanage homes in
Ghana and the African continent.

18. PROGRESS MADE
• Project has been enrolled in two different orphanage
homes in two regions of Ghana( Oti and Eastern Regions).
• This year, we have cultivated a 5-acre cassava farm and a
two acre pepper farm for orphans at Blessing Academy
orphanage in the Oti Region. Proceeds from the cassava
farm will be used to complete a girls dormitory project
already under construction.
• We cultivated a 1-acre okra farm at the Baptist School
Complex and Orphanage

19. Harvested pepper at Blessing Academy
(AgriHelp Diaries-2018)

20. Harvested maize at the Baptist School Complex and
Orphanage (AgriHelp Diaries-2018)

21. Rechanneling of expenditure on food to addressing
their educational and infrastructure needs
Library
ICT Lab
Addition to social capital (Human and Mental Development)

22. ACHIEVEMENT
• The project got some funding from ASHOKA last year. The
Agri-Help project was selected for the ASHOKA boot-camp
held in Accra, Ghana. During our collaboration section,
three young change makers from Cameroon and Ghana
came together and applied for the ASHOKA funding project.
• We piloted the project in two orphanage homes in
Cameroon and one orphanage home in Ghana. The year-
long partnership is expected to come to a close at the end
of this year (2019), where the proceeds and impact of the
project will be measured.

23. PROSPECT
• From the very onset, only two orphanages; Blessing Academy
Orphanage home and Baptist School Complex and orphanage
with land sizes of half an acre and one acre respectively were
enrolled on the scheme. From 2017 to 2019 total production
from Adenta orphanage home stood at 100 kg and that of the
Baptist School Complex and orphanage was 300kg. Money
realized from sales amounted to 700 cedis from the surpluses
that were sold.
• So far, the initiative has had a rippling effect as these
beneficiary orphanage homes are scaling the project on a large
land acreages. There is a great potential to affect not only the
orphans but even the surrounding communities to also take up
serious agriculture ventures. The project will be diversified by
entering into livestock rearing hence will provide a holistic
support for these orphans to be food secured and curb
malnutrition.
• Spreading this project to all orphanage homes in Ghana will
mean that, these kids will not have to solely depend on donors
both locally and internationally but can sustain themselves.

24. CHALLENGES OF PROJECT
Major challenge include:
• Inadequate funding

25. “I believe in the future of
Agriculture with a faith born not
of words but of deeds”
Erwin Milton Tiffany