 My name is Gradisewa Adwisa. My country have already mentioned as Ghana. My organization is called ECASAD, Economic Association for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development. We have nine countries that comprises of the western African region. And you can imagine how to go round would be too difficult. We have English and French-speaking countries which I speak only English. So understanding the French people is a problem for me personally. And I am a means of getting funding to travel to other countries to see what they are doing. It's also a big challenge to me. Women are to creation in central. Personally is a means of meeting maybe at least three times a year. We only have meetings about one or that is all because of funding. And when you call, when you WhatsApp, when you email, the response coming is also not readable because of the languages. We send English, the French people cannot read. When you send a French, the English we can also not read. So that is my challenge personally. I am a farmer. I grow cashew. I grow maize and yam. And I have about 50 acres of cashew. When it's bearing fruit and the time for harvesting, I don't get marketing. And the women I am working with who also come with complaints that they are also not getting marketing. We wanted to know that this processing machines that can help us to add value to the cashew will be of great importance. If I will get a means from any organization or any benevolent society, that can help us to get simple processing machines for women in the rural areas to add value to the cashew because we just throw away the fruits. We correct only the nuts. And after correcting the nuts, we just sell it raw. And that is hindering the progress. We don't get money. And as such we are not able to look after our children. The poverty is draining the women, me as well. We want to do away with the middle women who comes to the farmers, give us loans when the farming season is off. Just to keep us alive. And when after farming and harvest I need to pay this money with interest. And the middle women who come to buy are those people who decide the price for me. Which is very bad because my price goes into the farming itself, the cost. But the person who is coming to buy doesn't know the cost. But he will determine the price for me. He is not helping me to grow as to be able to live with other class of women in my country as a woman. And now I will say that the media too we need to get money to engage the media. Media engagement goes a long way to promote whatever we are producing. People want to buy but they don't know that you are producing anyhow. If you have the media house they will go, we want to engage them tell our story so that they will be able to promote the rural women in my country as well. Government, what can the government also do for us, for the women that I am working with. The women are always crying because of poor road infrastructure and poverty, no loans to expand farms. We talk of family farming which is very small and the family of six or seven depends on this family farm. And what can we do? I don't have land to use as a collateral. I don't have a house to use as a collateral. I will be depending on my husband's land. After the death of my husband the people of the husband family would drive me away with my children and it has cost a lot of far work in Ghana because the children will grow up if I don't have any means of taking good care of them the girls will enter into prostitution and the boys will indulge themselves in social vices such as alcohol such as drug addicts such as armed robbery which is very much on the rampage in Ghana rape defilement for young girls is a concern that needs to be taken up generally. I am afraid that in future the feeding of foundations are going to be in the chaos because people will not go into farming the young ones are always running away migration is killing our young ones from Africa you have heard it all over Ghana a lot of boys, young boys and girls are dying in the Mediterranean sea with the hope of going to Italy Europe to find a greener pasture where there is no work there for them they don't understand the language they are last put in a camp like refugees and they are there some will die on the sea we don't hear about them the parents will be sitting down and crying my son has travelled my daughter has travelled I am not hearing of her she will be thinking of her then she will also die and leave the rest of the family no land, no water no seed protection the seed that we are growing now we don't know where the origin is you produce and you cannot reproduce again but before now we may work as students of seed we produce our own seed we protect it and then replant it but now the seeds that are coming we just buy them every year you need to go and buy where will a rural farmer go to get money to buy seed always where are we going to get irrigation for our farming because the climate change has changed the weather pattern and the rainfall pattern for farming in our region and in my country as well we need a lot of education we need money for sensitization we need our government to give a budget for the women to be able to advocate to be able to look for what is good for women's life and health so the needs of women are different from the needs of men biologically so what are we doing to maybe get to the understanding that all men should understand that we are all equal we need to be treated equally we respect them they should also respect us they should involve rural women in the planning of policies for agriculture they should involve women in the decision making in families as the culture demands that women are not to be heard now there must be a change that women should be involved in decision making they should be involved in implementation of these decisions we don't want the idea of the white color of men and women in big big cities sitting at the offices and formulating policies for the rural women they don't know anything about farming they have never tested they have not gone to farm so it's time that we change these issues and then try to get the women involved in whatever is happening around them I say that my organization should give more opportunity for women in leadership especially in the president role we have been electing men-men-men to be the president for the past years now women should be also encouraged to be able to become president not only treasurer in the organization now lavia I would say that lavia should be able to support more of women activities in the various countries and the region as well it's working at the regional level but there are no support for the countries in country activities but now we need to work lavia to be seen to be visible we want the women to be heard to be known in all the countries even in the grass roots we try to advocate we try to do things that are very good and then we make lavia proud and then we make lavia proud