Remembering Lydia Miyella (1979–2024)

We are very sad to share that Lydia Miyella – Executive Director of Maaltaaba Peasant Women Farmers’ Cooperative in upper east Ghana – passed away unexpectedly on 23rd December 2024. She was 45 years old.
Lydia was an exceptional leader. Well-loved and well-respected, she dedicated her life to advancing the welfare of rural women farmers. She was the face of Maaltaaba Cooperative since its inception in 2015 and she led the cooperative with energy, passion and humility.
Born in the village of Kulpeliga in the Talensi District upper east Ghana, Lydia showed a talent for leading from a young age, organising young ladies in her church to become part of the Catholic Youth Organisation. She married very young and was widowed as a teenager – left to bring up 3 children on her own.
Faced with an uncertain future and no income to take care of her young family, Lydia began teaching in private schools. Many years later, Lydia could afford to pay for her own schooling and she studied for a Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education and Teaching at the University of Winneba.
It is her own difficult experiences which led Lydia to found the Maaltaaba Peasant Women Farmers’ Cooperative almost ten years ago. Run by women for women, its mission is to promote climate-resilient sustainable agriculture and women's rights – built on the values of teamwork, environment justice, transparency, accountability, and integrity. The cooperative brings together women farmers, coaches them, trains them, and seeks support for them so they can in turn take care of their families. The vast majority of the women are single mothers, widows and women who have been unable to complete their schooling.
The organization currently has 1,250 members in the Talensi, Nabdam, and Bongo districts in the Upper East Region of Ghana. The cooperative focuses on growing fruit trees and diverse crops including soya beans, sorghum, early millet and okra, without the use of chemical fertilisers or pesticides. The women create their own manure to fertilize their farms and this has served as an example for neighbouring areas who visit to learn from these innovative initiatives. The women also raise chickens and guinea fowl and produce oil and honey.
Over the years, Lydia campaigned tirelessly for the empowerment of women farmers, highlighting their role as the custodians of traditional farming practices and in the future of sustainable farming, especially in the face of climate change. She also strongly advocated for policies to uphold the rights of rural women to education, training, and access to technology, as well as policies to tackle the marginalization of women and their abuse.
The Cooperative is a member of the Ghana Federation of Forest and Farm Producers (GhaFFaP) and is supported by the Forest and Farm Facility and the STAR-Ghana Foundation, amongst other partners.
Thanks to Lydia’s trailblazing leadership, the Maaltaaba Cooperative has brought about a lot of positive change in the area, helping rural women to become financially independent and breaking social barriers. Lydia will be dearly missed by everyone who knew her.
There will be a wake-keep service for Lydia at 6pm on 17th January, followed by a burial mass on
18th January – both at OLA Catholic Church, Bolgatanga.
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Sources of information:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lydia-miyella-24799a146/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/maaltaaba-peasant-women-farmers-cooperative/posts/
https://apexnewsgh.com/maaltaaba-women-celebrates-international-rural-womens-day/