Meet Esther
Empower the women behind your chocolate
Meet Esther
Empower the women behind your chocolate
3 in 4 global consumers feel that businesses or companies have a responsibility to lead social and environmental change.
Cocoa Horizons: supporting women in cocoa growing communities
We believe that when women are empowered, the world is a better place today and tomorrow. In fact, women tend to invest more in their children’s future and in their communities. They are the catalysts for positive change in cocoa-growing communities.
VSLAs (Village Savings & Loan Associations) enable women to pool savings and raise resources to improve their family’s livelihood or to fund household needs. By providing women with access to financial services such as savings and credit, it can enable first steps towards economic empowerment. Access to income-generating activities can offer women access to the workforce, as well as strengthen their resilience when faced with major crises. Through financial independence, women gain more power and self-confidence to make decisions that affect their future.
Via the Cocoa Horizons Foundation, you support access to VSLAs enabling women to raise money for investing in their own businesses like poultry farming, vegetable, rice cultivation or for sending children to school. In Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Cameroon, 800 VSLAs were established in the 19/20 crop year including more than 8000 women members. Cocoa Horizons plans to double this number this year and foresees to scale up to potentially 3000 VSLAs by 2025.
Esther and her husband Kofi checking the cocoa beans during the drying step
Meet Esther, a strong entrepreneurial woman from Ghana
Esther is 40 years old, with her husband Kofi they are happy parents of 6 and expecting the 7th very soon. For the past eight years, they both have worked as cocoa farmers on the farm started by Kofi’s grandparents. With the support of coaching via the Cocoa Horizons program, they were able to significantly increase their yield and generate a better income.
Esther also benefited from the implementation of a VSLA in her community. She was able to make a loan with the money raised and start her own food and vegetable business.
Esther selling products in the market
Cocoa Horizons has taught us, the women especially, how to organize ourselves and form a VSLA, how to save some of our money, how to access loans, and how to invest the loans effectively into our business.
Nowadays, I make and sell gari (food preparation based on cassava), I sell provisions, I farm tomatoes, groundnuts, tiger nuts, pepper, okra and many other vegetables, which I sell in the market.
Esther in front of her market stall
With the support of the program, Esther was also able to start poultry farming.
We started with 7 chicks but when they got big we sold them, kept some of the profit and bought 20 chicks with some of the money. Poultry is very profitable. It’s very helpful. As a mother, it is important to always have money so you can step in immediately when your children have an urgent need.
My firstborn is an auto mechanic. My second son wants to be a soldier. My oldest daughter wants to be a nurse and the other children are still too small.
Get involved and strengthen your sustainability messaging
Via the Cocoa Horizons Foundation, you can help empower women like Esther and many more in cocoa-growing communities. By investing in a sustainable supply chain and communicating on your efforts, you will differentiate your brand and answer to your consumer’s needs.
