I am Rejoice Etornam Foli aged 26 from Akome Gbogame in the Ho West District of the Volta Region of Ghana. I had my basic education at Akome and Kpedze after which I proceeded to EP Church Mawuko Girls Senior High School at Ho. I then enrolled at IPMC college of technology at East Legon in Accra where I am pursuing my advance diploma course in Data Base technology which will qualify me to become an expert in data base. I am the founder and head of First Women's Driving Academy (FiwDA) from January 2015 to date and also worked as an administrator of ATTC Driving School. I am a member of Young African Leaders Initiative, YALI, Network.

Gari produced from white cassava has become staple food in Ghana and more than one hundred and fifty million people worldwide use it as their daily meals. The cheapest food used by students in Ghana is gari provided they get sugar and shitor in addition. Boarding houses , hotels, restaurants, etc. use it in preparing meals. I have realized that, too much consumption of white gari courses blindness in future. Students are future leaders of our country. If white gari which is the cheapest food actually courses blindness, something serious must be done about it to change this situation for the better. Vitamin A is important for normal vision, the immune system, and reproduction. It also helps the heart, lungs, kidney and other organs work properly. I have therefore realized that, if the vitamin A is fortified with white gari, as iodine is done to salt to become iodated salt, its consumption will no more course blindness. I am therefore creating awareness in people and educating them on these issues. I am also pulling up resources to establish a factory where mass production of Vitamin A gari will take place to feed boarding schools, hotels, restaurants, public markets, through out the country and even enter into the export trade. Hygienic Vitamin A gari which will be produced from my factory, will be put into different sizes of rubber sachets and well sealed after grading them. Name of the product, production date, expiry date, weight, etc. will be shown on each of the sachets. There is also another type of cassava which is naturally yellow. Yellow cassava is naturally rich in Vitamin A so, there is no need to mix gari produced from yellow cassava with anything. I therefore need money to start the Vitamin A gari production on small scale untill it grows up to become a big industry.The money will be used to buy equipment and raw materials.I therefore need the assistance of the zidisha in raising this fund.

My idea is to produce gari fortified with vitamin A. Research has proved that consumption of white gari at the long run may result to eye defect. The loan will help me to finance my capital to start the business. This will enable me to prove my idea to the world. I will first start with local production of gari and then proceed onto larger production.