Sommalife

We are the team of Sommalife and are striving to empower rural women in Northern Ghana to increase profits in their businesses. They provide natural cosmetic products including Shea Butter. Shea Butter are made from shea nuts grown on the Shea tree. The women collect these nuts and use fire in the shea butter making process. Alternative fuel solutions are so scarce, that they are sometimes obliged to cut down shea trees for fueling the fire. It takes about 10 years before the tree starts giving nuts. These shea trees are essential for the businesses of these women and we need to help protect them and plant new ones. Only then the shea butter businesses of the rural Ghanaian women can survive!

This problem, tree cutting and shrinking forests is a worldwide problem. This problem does not only have environmental effects but for some people also economical effects. In the Northern part of Ghana, many lives of families in rural communities depend on the existence of shea trees (Vitellaria Paradoxa). The shea trees only grown in West Africa, produce shea nuts that are a valuable source of income for the mothers of the families . These women are responsible for the production of shea butter, a product that is widely used in the cosmetic and food industry . 

Besides the importance for the inhabitant s of Northern Ghana, it is also
very important for birds that are travelling to Africa to survive the cold
winters in Europe. The birds have to fly across the Sahara and this is the first
place where they can find food again. Nevertheless, the amount of trees is
decreasing in the last decades because of the cutting down of the trees for charcoal and to create extra space for their livestock. The trees are situated in the wild, where no-one has the authority of monitoring to protect those trees . 

• Sensitize 600 rural farmer s to reduce the cutting of shea trees for charcoal production by 100% 
• Demarcate and protect 120ha of shea parklands
• Train 350 rural farmer s to produce early-maturing shea trees
• Raise 14,000 shea seedlings for planting
• Improved parkland management skills for 120 women collectors

600 women shea collectors and butter processes across 20 communities in the Upper West Region of Ghana. Currently these women depend on their nut supply. Their nut supply is getting more scarce due to cutting down trees. The trees start serving nuts only after 10 years. We need to start planting trees now or otherwise in 10 years, the women will not have the desired nut supply to sustain their businesses. 

The problem that we are looking at is that a lot of communities in Northern Ghana are losing trees. These trees, especially shea trees, have an economical value to the community and the impact of that can be huge. Our solution is based on communities that depend on these trees. We are relying on existing seedling grafting technology that grows trees much faster than the original 10-15 years before producing nuts. With this technology shea trees will produce nuts within 3-5 years which will bring back the forest much faster. 

Pilot stage: 

Parkland restoration demarcating the parkland is a part of the project which is already in the pilot stage. Together with field officers, all shea trees are demarcated for protection.

Concept stage:

Our service of providing the seedlings cost money. Our company Sommalife is a profit organization with the aim of putting any additional profit back into the communities in the form of projects like the Shea Restoration project. This projects need additional funding to become successful. 

Our solution is innovative in 2 ways:

The use of grafting technique:

This grafting technique makes it possible to grow trees much faster. A normal shea tree would provide nuts within 10-15 years. This technique makes it possible to provide nuts only after 3-5 years. More on this technique in the other questions.

Active community participation:

Active community participation is needed to gain consistent change in cutting and regrowing trees. This is needed to fight climate change but in these communities also because they are economically dependent on these trees. Teaching the communities about the problem of the economical viability and environmental weapon against climate change is an essential part of this project.

Year 1: 1500 women in 50 communities will be educated on the effect of tree cutting, tree protection and tree planting.

Year 5: In 5 years, the impact of our project will be seen because the trees will have provided nuts. The trees will start producing revenue for the communities from then on. 

We measure our impact goals by:

• The trees that have been planted
• The women and children who have fulfilled the trainings
• The amount communities that are is aware of the environment

Full-time: 1

Part-time: 4

Field/Community agents: 12

The team is diverse and all necessary skills are present. The main team consists of 5 people. Mawuse and JohnCarl lead in Ghana responsible for all operations and business development. From the Netherlands, Tom, Joost and Willem provide help with online content, the financials and project setups. The mixture of a European and Ghanaian team empowers the project as networks and ideas are limitless. 

In Ghana, Mawuse leads operations and she uses the help of field an community agents all representing one of the communities that Sommalife is active in. Mawuse grew up in a community in Northern Ghana and knows about the situation. She also understands the people and can apply the right approach to engage this project with them.

 Our executive director, JohnCarl, leads the team and makes sure that all tasks are completed. He is currently working part-time as the other time in the week he spends at Farmerline, a big Ghanaian enterprise focusing on small-scale farmers. This helps as he has gained a tonne of experience in the small farm holder business and knows how to engage on projects like these. 

The three Dutch guys can take on all experience from earlier projects in Africa and use the help of Dutch connections with experience in ecosystem recovery projects.

The team consists of 2 nationalities, different ages and different genders and most important of all 2 different cultures. Although the working hours differ, the

Sommalife thinks their network of experienced entrepreneurs with a social thrive can benefit our ideas and help them to put them to a higher level. Sommalife is a young team and therefore has not much experience is big projects like the shea4hope project. 

We believe we can accomplish great goals with the help of the Solve community. Next to this we have a lack of financial dependence to start the projects we have in mind that help the communities to develop theirselves.

Human Capital is needed because not all communication is yet going through internet. Much of Ghana's communication and operations are physical. This requires more people involved such as community agents, field agents and community representatives. We could use all the help on structuring our Human capital the best we can.

Financially it is difficult as margins are small because we offer higher prices to the women registered. An accountant is expensive and so we do the financials ourselves. We could use all the help with this!

Organizations that have experience with social projects like re-forestation in West-Africa to avoid pitfalls, because this is the first time we are working on a re-forestation project. The COCOA RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF GHANA (CRIG) has done research on the grafting method of shea trees. Therefore their expertise would benefit our project.

Global Shea Alliance is also a good partner that could support our project with their expertise on the shea market and the educational support that they could provide to the women and the team Sommalife. The area where the communities are situated can use lot of social help to support the habitants of the Upper-West Region of Ghana. Due to the amount of improvement they need to sustainably manage their business and protect their environment, a partner with experience is large-scale social impact would be a pre, to monitor our project and give advice whenever they think that we should take a step back to balance the structure in the project.  

Sommalife is convinced that the project plan, shea4hope, qualifies for The ServiceNow Prize. This has several reasons:

1. Sommalife trains the inhabitants of the rural communities in the Upper-West Region of Ghana to protect the existing shea trees and make them more aware of the long-term vision of their past actions. Sommalife want to make an impact on all communities in Ghana, starting with 50, because of the importance of the existing shea trees. With this approach the information of the trainings will be shared over lots of communities of the Upper-West Region of Ghana and therefore the information will be shared of a large amount of communities.
2. Besides the carbon adsorption and decarbonization the shea seedling project has impact on the biodiversity and the livelihood of the rural families. The shea trees has are of high importance to the rural women for extra income. This will lead to a higher success rate for children to go to school.
3. At the moment the demand for shea butter is rising consistently, but the trees are cut down at an alarming rate. The shea butter is a sustainable alternative for palm oil, which is getting more and more attention in the past years. The women have to search further and further to find shea trees that have nuts on them and can be picked for the production of shea butter. With the shea seedling project, the demand for shea butter can be covered and the pressure can be released a bit.