Food Processing—Weekend Trip to Visit our Stakeholders

This weekend we went to visit our stakeholders, seven women total, who live in four different towns about an hour and a half from Kumasi. Our goal for this trip was to take these women the two Graters and three Presses that we built last week. Because we did not feel that the Graters were completely finished, we decided not to sell the Graters to the women on this trip, but instead demonstrated them and then brought them back with us to ITTU to fine tune until our next trip on Thursday.

Saturday, May 14^th 2016

When we came back to home base on Friday we continued working on the machines until 2 am. At that point, the Tech Subteam and Ben decided to call it a night and to take our machines in their current, almost-finished state to our stakeholders. We would not be selling the machines now, but just demonstrating them. When we return to the towns on Thursday, we will take the completed machines to the women.

Our first visit on Saturday was to see Hawa and Abigail in Adumkrom. We took a new Press to Hawa and demonstrated the new Grater to Abigail.

Hawa using her new press

Abigail looking at her new grater

After showing the new Press to Hawa and having her use it, she said that she likes this design most since it is not tedious and is easy to use---just what we like to hear! When we demonstrated the new Grater to Abigail, she gave us the feedback that she would like the grater to also grate different vegetables—this is something common we hear: the woman want the machine to do more, and more, and more. We take this as a compliment since it means that the machine grates so well that the women would like to use it for as many things as possible.

Our next stop was Akosua in Pekyerekye (PKK). She already has a Grater (a previous prototype with a slightly different design), but we are giving her a new Grater for 5 months as a trial run.

Luke performing a demo of the new grater for Akosua

Peeling cassava

We spoke with Akosua, her husband, and brothers about finances and machine features for a while before heading out. She was upset that we weren’t leaving the Grater with her, but we assured her that we were coming back Thursday with the finished machine. Although many men like to become involved in the process, we have to keep everyone focused that our project is focused on women for a women-led market. Although the men have many ideas and become very passionate about what else the machine could do, we always bring the conversation back to the woman and ask her what she thinks and wants.

Akosua, her husband (far left), and brothers

Right before leaving Akosua’s, I snapped this picture of Bench and just had to share it.

Bench the Gentle Giant

Just these two visits filled up all of Saturday! After visiting our stakeholders we went to our guesthouse to set up camp and have dinner. We helped grind “agushie” and also ate many mangos!

Luke grinding agushie

Eating mangos before dinner

After dinner we called it an early night (at 9pm!) so that we could have an early start (6pm) the next day.

Sunday, May 15^th 2016

We started our Sunday at Akosua’s to continue our visit. When we arrived she was frying the gari. Our visit was brief, but we were able to meet a new Stakeholder, Dora Ali, who is interested in both a Grater and a Press. We will be building these machines in the next weeks. When we left, Akosua gave Ben a huge handshake--she was really happy with her new machine!

Akosua frying cassava

Selfie after saying good-bye

Next we went to see Rebecca in Akutuase. We wanted to check-in on the new Press that she received last week. As soon as we arrived we saw one of the biggest bags being pressed with her new machine—she is definitely using it to its potential! Rebecca told us that she has been able to process more cassava since receiving the machines, which has given her more a higher income as well as more time. She is also happy that the machines make it so that she doesn’t have to ask anyone for help as she processes. She even said that she completely abandoned her previous methods of processing cassava by hand!

Rebecca and her new press

Our last stop was at Flaustina’s house in Wioso. Flaustina has ordered both machines and has gone through the bank to acquire a loan to pay for her machines. When we arrived, they were very happy to finally have us there. While we showed her how to use both the Grater and the Press, more and more people from the town became interested in what was happening, and before we knew it, there were more than 70 people surrounding us. It was quite the experience!

Flaustina grating cassava with her new machine 

She's already taking great care of her machines! 

We suddenly had an audience!

These children followed us to the van so we asked them to pose for a picture

After leaving Flaustina’s, we had dinner and drove back to Kumasi. We learned a lot from this trip and have every motivation to work hard this coming week to make as many machines as possible for these women. The women we met are driven, clever, hard working, and grateful for this opportunity to increase their productivity. What inspirational women!