In April the International Branch of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport invited Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal to attend the Institute’s Annual General Meeting and Annual Conference in Accra, Ghana. The city was chosen because this year is the 50th anniversary of Ghana’s independence, and the organisers wished to share in the on-going celebrations for this year.
We were delighted when asked if Transaid was supporting work that Her Royal Highness might find of special interest as it provided us with the opportunity to introduce HRH to the work of the Accra Women’s Market Traders Cooperatives.
Transaid considers this project to be particularly innovative because it is helping to address the important issue of disadvantage experienced by so many women in Africa when it comes to transport. Through this work we will enable a small transport cooperative to operate in a profitable and sustainable manner. The transport cooperative will be run by women and its operations are designed to meet the particular transport needs of the women market traders. The project is now well into its planning phase and IVECO will be supporting this project through the donation of the vehicles later this year.
It was therefore a great privilege to invite Her Royal Highness to visit Agbogbloshie Market in Accra where she met the leaders of the four co-operatives we are working with. During the visit the leaders had an opportunity to talk to Her Royal Highness about the huge transport problems they face on a daily basis, and describe how their new cooperative will bring about new and exciting improvements to their work.
Her Royal Highness was then taken to meet some of the stall holders in Agbogbloshie Market, and to experience the sights, sounds and bustle of a real African market.
What better launch for this exciting piece of work!
