The Conseil du Café-Cacoa, Cargill and CARE has enabled 14 cocoa farmer cooperatives to build 11 schools and three health centers in Côte d’Ivoire, Africa.
The facilities will provide more than 1,650 children with access to education and healthcare for 25,000 people across the local communities.
Bringing together investment from farmer cooperatives and the private/public partners, the US$1.9 million program has enabled 14 cooperatives to make their own decisions about investments in facilities that can benefit their communities.
Using the premium payments for certified cocoa paid to cooperatives under the Cargill Cocoa Promise, each cooperative also has benefitted from additional funding from the Conseil du Café-Cacao and Cargill, as well as the expertise of CARE to build the new schools and health centers.
CARE has additionally helped communities to adopt project management processes and good governance principles during the program.
The first schools and health center were officially inaugurated on 11 June at a ceremony in Manzannouan, in the east of Côte d’Ivoire.
Each brick constructed school includes three classrooms, one house for the school director, three houses for school teachers, a canteen, latrines and access to water.
The dispensary clinic projects include the clinic, equipment and a house for the doctor.
The schools will begin teaching their first students in October and the clinics will all soon be offering healthcare in their local communities.
There already are plans to extend the program to enable an additional 10 farmer cooperatives to build facilities to support their local communities.
