Response+about+Village+Life+in+Agbokpa

//The following text is the copied text from an email sent from David Dyer, a local Agbokpa community member, to our team regarding the views of the villagers about which technologies they see as being most influential and beneficial.//

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Hello Madison, Sorry I couldn’t get back to you as promised. My internet service has been off for the past 7 days, unfortunately it’s just one of many challenges I face in such a remote place. Hopefully this Info helps. Abgokpa is a settler community with a population of a few hundred (300-500) along the shores of lake Volta on the Afram plains of Ghana. The men generally fish while the women farm different crops (peanuts, yam, bean, corn, okra etc).

The main means of transportation is via the lake in boats. The community has a basic school, trades with other settler villages and at a market across the lake twice a week. During off seasons usually between November and February both men and women actively engage in charcoal burning since this is the dry season in Ghana. Abgokpa like many villages in Ghana lacks basic amenities such as potable water and electricity. The community also lacks a health facility. The main means of transportation is by boat across the lake. A typical farmer farms about 1-2 acre (0.4-0.8 hectare) of land, however for irrigation purposes, vegetables are the first choice produce for the villagers with each farmer farming between 0.5-1 acres of land. These they can readily sell at a market across the lake. Talking to the villagers give me the impression they are willing to pay for electricity and water more readily than they would for other services. Solar powered bore hole and electricity which the community can pay for is some of the ideas I gathered from the village elders. Although the proposal to rent plots to farmers is an option they seem more driven towards accessing electricity and clean water.

-David Dyer

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