One of Friends of Penyem’s next projects is to build a permanent fence to surround the Women's Garden in Penyem village. The Women’s Garden is the area in Penyem in which women plant crops to sell in the marketplace. Each year, the women team up to build a "local fence" around the garden in order to protect their crops from being eaten by scavenging animals. Local fences are made of twigs and grass from the bush, are easily penetrated by cows, goats and other animals that eat the women's crops down to a nub, and usually need to be re-built annually.
The village women's group, called Soforai Women's Association (which means "come together") is interested in setting up a microfinance loan from Friends of Penyem to support the construction of the fence. The women who use the enclosed garden can then use proceeds from their gardening to pay down the loan over time. Once it is paid off, the capital from the loan can be re-deployed to another project to promote economic development for women in the village.
