COWEA

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Welcome to COWEA

We are the Community Organization for Empowerment through Agriculture in Liberia
COWEA is a charitable Non-Governmental Agency (NGO) established in 2015 and focused on building community farms using self-sustaining farming practices, primarily for women and children in small communities.

Our goal is to empower women with life sustaining food raised by their own hands within a community of women who share the work and harvest. Crop harvests each season are shared equally among the women who work on the farm, while some of the harvest is saved for planting in the next season. The women may do what they want with their harvest portion; use it for food or sell it for cash.  Some of the women use the proceeds from selling part of their harvest for money to pay for their children to attend school.  (K-12 school in Liberia is pay to attend.)

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Our Farm Communities in Liberia

We currently have seven farm communities in Lofa county, Liberia. The first, Telbomai, was started in 2015. This was followed by Karsa in 2016. These two farm communities are completely self-sufficient. The next two farms we started are Vonamai and Kugbemai, both established in 2017. We then built the Manamai community farm in 2019. These three farms are close to becoming self-sufficient. The last two community farms are Lavalasu (2020) and Massamai (2021). These most recent two farms are just getting started.

Telbomai

In 2015 we established the Telbomai farm community near Voinjama city in Lofa county, Liberia. The headwoman is Gaydour Kamara and there are 45 women who work and benefit from the farm. The Telbomai community is wholly self-sufficient.

Karsa

The Karsa farm community was established in 2016 and is located near the Lofa river south of Voinjama city. The headwoman is Ma Damawah Jaggbeh. The Karsa farm community is wholly self-sufficient.

Kugbemai

In 2017 we established our third farming community; Kugbemai located north of Voinjama city. The headwoman is Kebbeh Fobbay. Kugbemai is nearly self-sufficient.

Vonamai

We started the Vonamai farming community in 2018. Vonamai is located north of Voinjama city in the northeast tip of Liberia, bordering Guinea. The headwoman is Vargula Saybah.

View all COWEA Farming Communities

About COWEA

COWEA was formed in 2015 by Romeo Dennis based on an desire to help women and children who were widowed and orphaned by many years of civil war in Liberia and then an Ebola outbreak in 2014.  Romeo attended Asian Research Institute (ARI) in Japan during 2014, learning self-sustaining organic farming techniques.  Returning to Liberia in December 2014, Romeo saw the devastation caused by the Ebola virus and resolved to help as many people as possible.  He determined to start an organization that will provide for women and children; thus, COWEA was born in the spring of 2015.  We started with one community (Telbomai) of 48 women close to Romeo’s home in Voinjama city, Lofa county, Liberia.  We purchased land and cleared it for farming, then provided seeds, instruction and oversight for the women to learn self-sustaining organic farming techniques.  Over the past six years we have establish six more COWEA community farms, each in different stages of development.  Today Telbomai is completely self-sufficient as are two other farms we helped start.  Our goal is to provide food and income for women and children in need, empowering the women to care for their families through farming and education.  We provide the farms and teach how to become self-sustaining in agriculture and personal finances. This allows the women to grow crops and share the harvest among themselves.  Some of the women choose to sell a portion of their harvest, thereby earning money to send their children to school, helping to break the cycle of poverty and empower the next generation.      

COWEA is a non-governmental organization (NGO), registered in Liberia.  

The COWEA Story

Please consider donating to COWEA projects and help empower women

We have multiple projects you can participate in from starting new farms to building a palm oil plantation to ongoing education programs.  

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