The introduction of the new form of Educational Scholarship Scheme dubbed: “Trax-Kavli Scholarships Farm”, is being implemented in the Kabusgo community in the Bongo District of the Upper East, where the two NGOs,built a 100-capacity ultra-modern animal housing unit with a mechanizedborehole and provided support to Junior High School pupils to go into thebreeding of small ruminants particularly goats.

At a ceremony in the Kabusgo community to present a container of solarpanels and assorted items to help boost the project, Mr Vincent Subbey, Director, Trax Ghana, said the new form of Scholarship Scheme is being implemented with funding support from the Kavli Trust Fund, Norway.

Mr Subbey said under the scholarship project, instead of givingscholarships in cash to the beneficiaries, the scheme gives brilliant but needy pupils a number of goats to breed and sell their offspring to buytheir educational needs.

“Pupils care for the goats, generate income from the goat manure, which iscrucial for farming in northern Ghana and sell the offspring to buy theiruniforms and books. The premise is that pupils benefit by partnering in the project as opposed to being passive recipients”, he said.

He said to avert the challenge of livestock mortality likely to be faced bythe beneficiaries, the project has trained Community Livestock Workers(CLWs) and equipped them with first aid kits to enable them render servicesat minimal fees to replace used drugs.

Mr Subbey said in December, 2018, Trax Ghana awarded its first badge of scholarships to a total of nine pupils of the Beo-Tankoo, St. Luke and TI Ahmadiyya Junior High Schools.

He said the solar panels would generate electricity to help reduce both the expensive and the frequent power outages from the national grid.

“We are very happy with the arrival of the solar panels and theiraccessories from the Trax Norway shipment. As a long term solution to the problem of power outages which often affects the farm, the project will nowinstall solar panels on the farm as sustainable source of renewal energy.

This will also help lower the cost of running the farm, thus making it costeffective”, Mr Subbey said.

Experts would train some selected youth in the project communities in theinstallation and maintenance of the panels to enable them render solarpanel external services as source of livelihood.

He said until recently, Trax Ghana supported the education of talentedchildren from impoverished families through scholarships, where the awards were in the form of school uniforms, exercise books, sandals, pens andweekly feeding cash per attendance.

He said the scheme in its present form depended on the availability ofcontinuous external funding, which is currently irregular and lacked longterm sustainability, hence the introduction of the Trax-Kavli Scholarships Farm.