Publication: Literacy and Local Governance in a Rural Community : The Experience of Nwodua, Ghana
Date
1999-04
ISSN
Published
1999-04
Author(s)
Easton, Peter
Abstract
The note reviews the efforts begun in
1979 by an illiterate farmer from Nwodua, Ghana, to bring
instruction in the ways of a modern society to his
community. The success led to further opportunities in
functional literacy, and soon a full scale adult primary
school was opened, which became the center for a whole
series of local developmental activities. A health care
committee was established, which later guided the creation
of a grinding mill to prepare weaning mixture for infants,
eventually leading the community towards a self-sustaining
food processing industry, and, other initiatives in the area
of agro-forestry soon followed. Increased commerce made it
imperative to upgrade roads infrastructure, to constitute a
vocational-technical center, and develop new innovations to
benefit the poor rural communities. This success lies in the
renewed form of community governance, gradually elaborated
by village authorities, and young participants in the new
initiatives, to provide a basis for managing, and expanding
their activities, in a framework to extend new forms of
local governance.
Citation
“Easton, Peter. 1999. Literacy and Local Governance in a Rural Community : The Experience of Nwodua, Ghana. Indigenous Knowledge (IK) Notes; No. 7. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/15d5d8ad-01a9-5806-b998-3fc70535a79f License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”