Bomigo Island – Ecovillage Transition Project Transitioning Bomigo Island community into and Ecovillage to build resilience to climate change

The Bomigo community is an island comprised of around 1500 inhabitants in the coastal areas close to Anloga in the Keta district of the Volta Region of Ghana. It is a community surrounded by the salty waters of the Keta Lagoon, around 146 kilometers from Ho, with a final journey by boat the only way to reach the island from the mainland. Bomigo is off the electricity grid, with minimal access to public services – it is one of the poorest and most deprived areas of Ghana. The main occupations are into fishing and subsistence farming, and a large proportion of the economy in this area is generated by the process of fish-smoking, primarily done by women, and often with children in the near vicinity. The men also harvest the mangroves and sell as firewood for fish smoking in the local communities thereby depleting the mangrove ecosystem.

The Institute for Sustainable Energy and Environmental Solutions (ISEES) Department for Community and Ecovillage Development is working with the leadership of the community to support them in transitioning from into an ecovillage. Beginning with a grant support from the Canadian High Commission to introduce Clean Cookstoves for Fish smoking women groups to improve their healths and livelihoods, Lovans Owusu-Takyi, the head of ISEES and the Vice President of GEN Ghana is working to inculcate ecovillage principles into the community and helping them to transition into a full eco-community

The Bomigo Ecovillage Transition Project has been featured on Global Giving www.globalgiving.org with initiatives to use Education and Clean Energy to improve rural livelihoods and Health link here http://goto.gg/47397

Additional information:

https://challenges.openideo.com/challenge/2019-bridgebuilder-challenge/ideas/building-resilience-in-climate-displaced-island-communities-in-ghana/comments

https://www.ghananewsagency.org/social/bomigo-community-members-trained-in-alternative-woodlots-129733