My name is Pastor Nana Kweku Mensah. I am now a Catechist of the Adenta Methodist Church in Accra. I am blessed with a wife and four children: 3 boys and one girl namely Joseph, Justice, Noah and Rosemary. I am the bread winner of my family and 5 other children who live with me from my wife’s and my extended family.

You may be asking yourself, how much does a Methodist catechist earn (besides blessings from Jesus) for me to be able to fend and cater for this battalion.

The Lord’s way of assisting me to care for my family is through the Blessing of the MORE system. Gal 6:7b says that “whatever a man sows, so shall he reap”. I sow using the MORE techniques I learned through the kindness of my sponsors from Perpetual Prosperity Pumps Foundation, so my rabbits multiply so fast, so does my chicken. Joseph and Justice love to feed the rabbits. In the minor rainy season, I sold $20 (equivalent) worth of okra every three days for over six weeks. That was how the whole family was sustained during the period.

You will wonder, what is unique about the MORE system. I say, it is the integration of the profit centers. One of the components is always giving you income: if it is not mushrooms, it is cucumber, or cabbages, or chicken. I write hereby to express heartfelt thanks to my sponsors. May the Good Lord bless the founders and leaders of PPPF. May your prosperity never see an end just like mine.

Pastor Nana Kwaku Mensah

My name is Yaa Adoma. I am the mother of the Yaa Adoma Family. My family is one of the first 10 selected and sponsored to receive training and set up in the MORE system. None of my grandparents as well as my parents went to school. I never went beyond class 6 either. My parents and grandparents were all farmers and so am I. So you can imagine my joy when I was selected to receive training in the MORE system.

I told my colleagues that the name MORE sounds good to me, so whatever the name meant, it will be good and lo and behold, it is good.

Before I received sponsorship from PPPF my farm was mainly consisted of cassava, plantain, cocoyam, and corn. After I received the training and support, now I farm tomatoes, garden eggs, ‘abedru’, pepper, cabbage, etc. I also have chicken, mushrooms, and rabbits. This year, I am going to prune my own trees for firewood and plant more.

My colleague farmers ask me always “adEn na wo deE wo ho nkyere wo da yi?” ‘why do you always look like you are not in any hardship at all’? I tell them that, the secret is MORE- the integrated prosperity farm. The most wonderful of all is that, even though I never went beyond class six, I now can and will take care of my children’s education until at least one completes university.

I am very grateful to my sponsors SPY Aquatics/ Gotta Run and PPPF for this wonderful experience; and especially for the shoes given to my family. My kids are still wearing them to school after two years. My house address is E28, Essienimpong. I am happy to show everybody my farm.

Thank you very much,

Nana Yaa Adoma for Yaa Adoma Family

My name is Emmanuel Klutse. I was selected to represent the Klutse Family which consist of my aunt and three sisters, Wendy, Rahel and Stella. I am an Ewe from the Volta Region. Ewe‘s are patrilineal, so when my father died, my father‘s sister, Aunt Janet has taken care of me since I was five years old.

I am very grateful to PPPF for supporting me to receive training in the MORE system at KITA. As a result of the training, I‘ve been able to raise my own organic vegetables for sale to support my Auntie in taking care of my sibblings. I also raise tree seedlings for sale especially moringa.

I also received training in small business management, personal financial managment, leadership, marketing and banking skills w

hich has enabled me to manage my farm effectively as a business.

Through the support from PPPF I have set up a farm to support my family with year round vegetables and food. I have also set up one Future farmers club in my area that I teach the MORE practical agricultural skills to young junior high school pupils in my locality.

My family wish to say we can never thank our sponsors enough.

Thank you, PPPF.

Emmanuel Klutse

2 sisters Wendi and Rahel holding moringa seedlings – each sell for $2.50 equivalent

My Aunt Jane and the 2 sisters in the farm with the PPPF bicycle

Me and the FFG club

The other FFG club members

At the peak of one of the worst dry seasons in Ghana and Sub Saharan Africa, PPPF’s adopted family, Mohammed Manshur (25 years), reaps abundance of okra and tomatoes and makes hundreds of Cedis from a lush farm to the surprise of many farmers in his area.

Mr. Mohammed Mansur (holding three okras up-left) is the family representative of the Manshur Family adopted by Magothy River Middle School of Maryland in 2008. Mohammed was sponsored by Magothy River middle school to receive training in the MORE system, and to receive start-up materials to set up his own MORE Farm. Mohammed is now teaching the MORE principles to students in Tamale Polytechnic and also managing his own MORE farms.

According to the Agricultural extension officer in charge of the area, Mr. Fuseini Musah, the fresh state of Mohammed’s farm baffles all farmers and extension officers in the area. According to Mr. Fuseini this dry season has been one of the worst in Ghana with temperatures of 41 to 42 degrees and 26 to 27 degrees Celsius in the afternoons and nights respectively. Most shrubs and legumes have completely dried up. To him it is pretty amazing to have such a fresh farm in the middle of nowhere in the Northern Region where there is deep concern about how fast the Sahara desert is approaching.

According to Mr. K. Atobiga a neighboring farmer, Mohammed is not doing anything completely different from what all other farmers are doing, yet his farm is completely out of the ordinary. “When we ask Mohammed his secret, he just say ‘it’s the MORE magic’. We say, then come and perform the MORE magic in our farms so we can also have more”. “We all want to go to Kumasi (where Mohammed got his magic) to learn the MORE magic”.”Mohammed says next dry season he will walk us step by step through the MORE practices so we can have many farms”.

With an infectious smile and pointing to a wad of cash in his pocket, Mohammed observed “the market women chase me in town to give me deposits for my produce. Since when did farmers become so important that market women bring gifts to their farms to lobby to be allowed to buy produce? I and my family are so blessed.

“The best thing that ever happened to me in my life is the MORE training I received in Kumasi. I am so grateful to Magothy River Middle School for sponsoring me.” When we asked Mohammed, what is so unique about the MORE practices he responded with another wide smile and said “maybe site
selection, or planting distances, or the way the cow dung was mixed into the soil, or the water conservation practices, or the seed selection, or a combination of all, I can’t be sure. What I can say is that the MORE training taught me to have a good relationship with my plants. I observe their mood and as much as I can, I give them their needs”.

When we asked Mohammed, where he gets his water from, he observed that he dug about 5 feet deep into a dried river bed and he located his Miracle Pump there. He paddles the water into a 55gallon drum. A long ¾” pipe connects the drum to the farm. Interestingly the soil retains lots of the water for the plants so I don’t need to water that often.

Mohammed counts 3 to 5 okras for 50pesewas. He hopes to make more than 3500 Cedis (about 3000$) from this ¾ acre okra farm. This is my after school project. I come here after school with Muktar who is in class 6.” Mohammed’s younger brother Muktar, (insert in the first page holding a basket of tomatoes) learning after his brother also harvest that much tomatoes from his small farm every 3 days.

May was a unique month for the MORE Institute and PPPF USA and all our adopted families. This is because a completely new approach to adopting families called the MORE Village concept was launched. Thirty adopted families from one town displayed their produce and the items they have received from the MORE program and some families received their final enterprises on the MORE thermometer. May also marked the beginning of the major rainy season when the ‘rains have come to stay’ so all farming work gets to its peak. A couple of refresher courses were therefore run for the families to discuss lessons from their MORE farms and this was followed by post training visits. The Big News for Ghana now is that US President Barak Obama is to visit Ghana in mid July and even Adopted Families and all Ghanaians are looking forward to this visit.  So Mays report falls under the following headlines:

1. Final Touches on Items given out on MORE Village Launching.
2. MORE Village Launched.
3. Post training workshops conducted.
4. Families Express their appreciation to their sponsors with hand made banners.
5. Christian Sims from London (UK) visits Adopted families to discuss the effectiveness of the MORE training.
6. World Environmental Day celebrated by a brief workshop on water management.
7. Executive Guards of Earth visits MORE families.

Final Touches on Items given out:

Some final touches were made on 30 rabbit hutches and 30 poultry pens that were to be given out during the MORE village launching. The rabbit hutches and poultry pens had newly improved dimensions that ensured maximum ventilation and optimum space for the rabbits and rural poultry. The designs also ensured easier care for the animals as well as easier maintenance practices. A couple of days before the launching, the wood was treated with local wood preservatives to ensure that the hutches and pens last long against termites and wood weevils. Locks were also placed on all of them to ensure the safety of the animals for the beneficiary families.

More Village Launched

Over 30 farming families from the Essienimpong community have received the MORE training. They have also received set up support (enterprises on the MORE thermometer) to establish their own MORE system. This is the only village with that huge number of families supported to receive the MORE system. A whole economic and social resuscitation has begun in the town because people’s lives have been improved immensely. On May 19^th, 2009 the Essienimpong township was launched as the MORE village. In that colourful ceremony attended by Chiefs, and important government representatives, etc., other families also received the final items on their MORE thermometer.

Our goal is that the Essienimpong village shall continue to soar in the prosperity such that the improvement in the lives of the 30 farming families shall ripple unto all the families in the village and surrounding communities. It is our hope that in the near future, the MORE Managers as they are called will have their own micro finance project or even a bank, where they can trade in MORE currency and perhaps give out MORE Green stocks. We have created an economic loop that will soon pull the whole Ashanti Region along.

Among the items given out during the launching were 30 rabbit hutches, 30 poultry pens, 90 rabbits, 150 rural poultry, 3000 mushroom bags, 1800 assorted fruit and cash crop seedlings, 20 bicycles, and 6000 agro forestry seedlings provided by Trees for the Future.

Post Training Workshops Conducted

MORE Institute has adopted a new teaching technology called the Pre-training, Actual training, and Post-training concept. Developed together with the Kumasi Institute of Tropical Agriculture, this concept breaks training down into three components; Pre, Actual, and Post training.

The MORE Program divides training in the MORE farm enterprises into two: – the impartation of knowledge, and the impartation of skills. Before families participate in the Actual Training, resource persons visit the family in their homes to assess their skill and knowledge levels and needs. Families are also sensitized about the program so they can prepare well before the Actual Training. This is Pre Training. It goes a little beyond ordinary needs assessment and sensitization.

After the actual training, the resource persons visit each family at home to ascertain how they are putting the skills and knowledge into practice. Families have the opportunity to discuss their experiences and observations with the resource persons. The resource persons are able to clarify for them whatever questions they might have. This is MORE’s concept of Post training.

After the five – days Actual Training conducted in April, there was the need for the follow up post-training. In early May therefore, resource persons conducted a comprehensive individual post –training activity. The overall observation was that the 5 day workshop in April was extremely successful.

Below are some pictures of POST Training workshops.

Families Express Appreciation with Woven Banners

Adopted Families know their sponsors, so in May, in the countdown to the MORE village launching the families started making a big thing about giving something back to their sponsors. They had various propositions. The outstanding one was to have a hand woven cloth sent to their sponsors after a picture has been taken with the family holding it. They all did these cloths before the launching, so during the launching, they took pictures with their cloths and handed the cloths over to be given to their sponsors.

Christian Sims of the City and Guilds (UK) Visits Families

A Policy Analyst and Advisor to the London City and Guilds Vocational and Technical Training Directorate (UK) visited The MORE Institute in May 2009. His visit was to ascertain the effectiveness of the MORE training and how replicable it is. He conducted series of meetings with adopted families who were in various levels of their MORE training. He was particularly interested in the fundamental principles underlying our training; why we train families this way. He was also interested in the type of course materials we used and the gender ratio of the families we are working with. With a set of targeted questions Mr. Sims also aimed to ascertain from the family participants their understanding of the concepts and in their opinion what works and what does not work for the families. At the end of his section he said he is ‘particularly impressed about the high levels of confidence the participants had about the knowledge and skills they have acquired’.

General News: US President Barak Obama to Visit Ghana in Mid July.

It is reported that President Obama is looking forward to this visit. Ghanaians feel honored that the President did not choose to visit Kenya his father’s home land first but chose Ghana as his first place to visit in Africa as President of the United States. Earlier, it was reported that President Obama says that Ghana is America’s very important and strategic ally in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Ghanaian President John Evans Atta Mills (an acquaintance of Mr. Riordan) is also reported as saying that President Obama is Africa’s pride and the fact that he is President of United States is a testimony that all nations can achieve equality for all, and that there is a lot to learn from the American people in this regard. President Mills also said that President Obama’s ideals are very respectable.

In Ghana, the White House said Mr Obama and his wife looked forward “to strengthening the US relationship with one of our most trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa”.

During the visit Mr Obama hopes to highlight the “critical role that sound governance and civil society play in promoting lasting development”, the White House said.