Fourteen Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) in the Ashanti Region, have graduated as the second cohort of SNV GrEEn incubation programme.

The beneficiaries undertook six months of incubation at the Kumasi Hive, Recycle UP Ghana, HAPA Space and Women’s Haven.

Each participating venture was awarded a certificate at the end of the programme.

They are Rural Green Recycling, Eben Ventures, Lord Philbarn Enterprise, Agricentric Ventures and MushFam Enterprise.

The rest are; Eazz Foods, Abasi Farms, Hakama Company Limited, Nasaglach Limited, Fiifi Farms, Luxury Farms, Nasey 1 Farms, A.S 87 Enterprise and Urban Permaculture Ghana.

The Boosting Green Employment and Enterprise Opportunities in Ghana (GrEEn) project is a four-year project implemented in the Ashanti and Western Regions of Ghana.

The project is an European Union funded programme that SNV Ghana is implementing with the United Nations Capital Development Fund.

The project seeks to support the development and scale-up of businesses in the agriculture sector, renewable energy and water and sanitation.

It targets young people between the ages of 15 and 35.

Addressing the participants in Kumasi, officer in charge of Incubation and Acceleration at the SNV, Genevieve Parker-Twum noted that SNV will continue to build the capacity of the beneficiaries.

“From today, they’re part of the alumni network. Our focus is to make them investment ready with financial management skills. We will also be providing tools and resources to them to improve their access to funding,” she said.

She revealed that applications are now open for the third SNV incubation programme which will be an all-female cohort.

“We want to see businesses co-founded by females. We realise many of the businesses are led by females but usually they don’t have time to attend programmes like incubation so we see more males attending.

One of the participants, Mettle Rahim Nii Okai of Rural Green Recycling was full of praise for the programme’s practicability.

“Talking about business management, business analytics, funding acquisition and networking, were taught in a practical way,” he said.

Amanda Adjeiwa Adajapong of Abasi Farms believes she is now well positioned to manage her business.

“We have learnt a lot. They helped us to know how to treat our customers, our time, provide better products and particularly, documentation or book keeping," she said.