SWOPA
Sirigu Women's Organization for Pottery and Art (SWOPA) was established under the visionary leadership of Mama Melanie Kasise in 1997 as a vehicle of empowering the women of Sirigu to revive the dying traditional artworks, to enhance their incomes. The Association was registered with the Registrar General's department on 16th October, 1997 with registration number G2552 in the name of Sirigu Potters Association. The name was changed to Sirigu Women's Organization for Pottery and Art (SWOPA), because of the inclusion of other arts other than pottery alone in 2019 with Registration No.CG049332019.
Since its establishment, both the Founder and the Centre have received Regional and National awards in the tourism sector and have hosted many prominent people such as the former UN Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan and his wife, the late vice president Aliu Mahama.
Sirigu has been well known for its traditional architecture, pottery and wall designing. About 350 women who make these varied arts make the membership of SWOPA.
Sirigu is predominantly a farming community but due to its nearness to the Burkina Faso Southern Border, rains have become erratic rainfalls in recent years. Many of the youth have thus migrated to southern Ghana in search of greener pastures which in most cases is unavailable.
This makes the famine local industries of pottery, basketry and wall designing the main sources of income for many families. This was what prompted Mama Melanie to work for the start of the Centre so as to give women group a bargaining power in selling their wares locally, nationally and internationally.
Vision
SWOPA's vision is to be a community based service provider for empowering women and their families in Sirigu. SWOPA provides a unique opportunity for women solidarity, to improvement on their skills and production of quality pottery and art, to offer opportunities for women to develop and express their individual qualities and cultural identity and to improve their marketing and income situation.
Mission
The mission of SWOPA is to provide services to the community, to improve the social and educational position of women, to strengthen the traditional and cultural expressions and promote community based products for the local, national and foreign market towards poverty reduction.
Over the years, SWOPA has brought together many young ladies to learn and practice the Sirigu arts of pottery, basketry, wall designing and canvas painting.
As a result of the numerous benefits enjoyed by members, many other women have joined SWOPA making the numerical strength rise to over four hundred. This challenges the management of SWOPA to develop strategies towards empowering present and future generation of our community economically towards poverty reduction.
The activities are as follows:
- Training of women in Quality production of the various arts
- Securing marketing avenues for their products
- Group dynamics
- Reviving wall designs in Sirigu for tourism
International experience
Trade fare in Burkina Faso on two occasions to exhibit art wares in Art fares SITHO and SIOA.
WAY FORWARD
- To solicit funds to train more members with more focus on the younger ones
- Keep our focus on quality production to meet world market standards to enable us sell more to increase the income levels of the women.
- Exploring ways of partnering with the right Authorities to institute a traditional festival of arts as a market avenue for our products
PRODUCTS Pottery and Art PHONE NUMBER
- +233205880712
- +233243012967
[email protected] WEBSITE www.swopa.org
