Despite having no agricultural background and having originally been founded to answer the needs arising from AIDS affliction, the oneVillage Foundation now prides itself with its "agricultural achievements" in a small farming community in Ghana called Jukwa. The program, entitled the
Jukwa Farmers Coop, is supposedly providing "a livelihood for local farmers using the land sustainably" and the OVF claims to be teaching the local farmers how to promote their crops as organic and how to comply with the requirements for organic certification. It is a program that the OVF wishes to expand to other communities "in the oneVillage Foundation network". However,
as of today, its only achievement is the farm located in Jukwa.
According to the OVF, the Jukwa Farmers Coop project has been in implementation for several years, leading to the establishment of
a palm oil processing facility, which (according to the NTHU
students visiting in 2008) was
to 90% subsidized by the Ghana government providing funds by way of the OVF to promote the economic development of what the authorities believe to be a farming cooperative.
But is the Jukwa Farm really a cooperative, jointly owned by a number of local farmers in the community?
Known for its crafts, Jukwa is a small community neighboring the Kakum National Park in Southern Ghana.
Since 2008, when OVF founder Joy Tang was named "Development Mother" in this community due to her personal connections with the royal family of the Denkyira Kingdom, the OVF has been bringing students from the NTHU in Taiwan as part of the volunteer service partnership to visit the "Jukwa Farm Site" (as the farm is referred to in pictures posted on the Internet).
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| "Farmer Mus" presenting the palm oil press to the students from NTHU which is financed by the Ghana government |
Once at the farming site, the NTHU students are introduced to "Farmer Mus" and "Farmer Stephen" alledgely of the cooperative. These two men are in fact not farmers at all but are in reality OVF staff from Winneba posing as Jukwa farmers (to read more,
see Farmer Mus & the OVF Farming Bluff). The students are later also introduced to Agnes Ampong, a personal friend of Ms Joy Tang, who is running a non-registered "orphanage" that OVF is endorsing, whilst working full time at the Kakum National Park (to read more,
see the orphanage story).
For three years in a row, NTHU students have been taken to the same site in Jukwa which is introduced to them as a local farmers' cooperative. It is here that OVF prides itself on having established a local palm oil factory, which they are now seeking to launch through fair trade and other venues.
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| Another picture from the students' visit with the Prebbie brothers at the Jukwa farming site |
What the students are not told however is that the land on which all OVF's "charity" investments are taking place is actually the private property owned by OVF head of Ghana Kafui Prebbie and his older brother Godfred Prebbie. In fact, the Jukwa Farm Site - referred to as a farming cooperative - is therefore referred to occasionally as "Kafui's Farm Home" on informal flickr pictures (see example above). Kafui's brother Godfred Prebbie has a long background with the oneVillage Foundation in his previous positions as accountant as well as ecology and agricultural coordinator for the OVF.
The latter role raises serious concerns as to what private affairs have been dealt with in this position and why public funds raised from the Ghana government in OVF's name have been used for investment on the private property of the Prebbie brothers, which their family describes as "a very huge acreage of land for commercial farming" belonging to the brothers.
However, until now, the question of why a government-sponsored investment for the benefit of struggling farmers in a small community in Ghana would end up on the private property of an affluent family working with consultancy, teaching at the university and claiming to be engaged in charity work does not seem to have been raised!
In want of any questions, the OVF shamelessly present their "accomplishments" at this large, privately-owned commercial farm posing as a farmers' cooperative (below referred to as the Srowie Mixed Farmers Cooperative Society), whilst soliciting more funds based on the deception;
"The Srowie Mixed Farmers’ Cooperative Society (SMFCS) Project is one of the initiatives under the Ecology Pillar of the oneVillage Initiative of the oneVillage Foundation. It specifically focuses on a bottom-up grassroots approach for helping locals to support themselves. This idea led to the materialization of a farmer’s cooperative known as the Srowie Mixed Farmers Cooperative Society in Jukwa near Cape Coast in the Central Region of Ghana. The SMFCS received support from the oneVillage Foundation in the USA in 2005 to support its application to the Government of Ghana for a 20,000 US Dollar grant. Consequently, the cooperative was awarded the grant and have since benefited from a series of capacity building sessions and palm oil processing equipment for the collective growth of members. The grant has generated a series of mixed or blend of processes and activities that have been outlined in the following sessions.
...The enormous economic, social, financial and ecological benefits to be derived from the implementation of this project in the life of the project beneficiaries – Jukwa farmers, cannot be underestimated. The grant administrators therefore included capacity building and managerial skills training for a selected number of the farmers.
...Additional Funding Needed: We still need funding to complete the project. This includes completing the building, installing the hardware and paying for staff and fuel to operate the facility. If you can help please email us at info@onevillagefoundation.org"
Progress Report on Srowie Mixed Farmers Cooperative in Jukwa-Cape Coast, Ghana
As for the NTHU students, who have little time at the site and who are under the constant supervision of OVF staff, they are being
instructed by OVF's founder Joy Tang as part of the "Ecotour and Service Learning" program to write reports about the project that are then published on the web,
thereby authenticating a fraud in which they initially have no part:
"Zoe and Peter of NTHU were among village children in Jukwa, Ghana, a farming community. oneVillage Foundation Ghana has set up a farming project with the rural farmers co-ops with the goal of yielding healthy production of the palm oil and bi-products as well as increasing its marketing and sales through ICT as the investigation direction."
OVF EcoTour & Learning for NTHU Volunteers, Summer 2008
"After Kakum forest journey this morning, we were heading to palm oil processing factory continually. 2 days ago we had visited Jukwa farmers' farms of palm tree, corns, oranges and vegetables. Today, we were going to realize their processing steps of palm oil.
Ghana farmers have organized a co-up to promote their palm oils. In 2005, they had set up a new automation factory which was subsidized 90% by the government. But it doesn't start using yet till now."
http://ghanaeco.blogspot.com/2008/08/080806-farmers.html
"In Taiwan, we have explored and planned to post a complete project to Kiva site to help the Jukwa farming problems. With the effort the OVF, Ghana and Joy Tang, and many people including 2008 NTHU volunteers team, we have a very good contact and communication with the local farming. We collected the data we need and discovered the problems of the rural village. It is the process of trust-building between farmers in Jukwa and us. On the other hand, we happened to attend the maker-faire Africa in Accra, the capital of Ghana. We also believe it is a process of innovation dissemination which maker-faire has always been challenged. So I proposed the documentary of Jukwa farming and palm oil production to make the world know the Jukwa story and to raise the attention of these issues."
http://iyouth.youthhub.tw/iblog/main.jsp?act=view&id=ghanaeco&did=BDC000001940&month=200908
Furthermore, what is just as worrisome is the fact that the students are also asked to send in applications for more funding:
The students of 2009 made a proposal for the Jukwa Farm Coop... Mentioned in slide 3: http://www.slideshare.net/jefbuder/nthu-students-ecotou09-ppt
How can it be that the OVF is allowed to continue such fraudulent practices, not only deceiving its volunteers but also making them accomplices in a larger deception of the general public, by relying on prestigious institutions in Taiwan such as the NTHU, and by using public funds provided by the Ghana government? We strongly urge the Ghana authorities to open an investigation of all activities in Ghana revolving around the oneVillage Foundation and its network, including Ghanian nationals Kafui A. Prebbie and Godfred Prebbie.
