EHPEA

Mar 18

“We are making this commitment to our female employees, our members, ourselves, and the communities in which we operate. The future is bright for Ethiopia’s horticulture sector, and we know that supporting the health and well-being of our women workers means a stronger, more resilient workforce now and in long term.”

- Mr. Tewodros Zewdie, Executive Director at EHPEA

The Ethiopian Horticulture Producer Exporters Association (EHPEA), a membership organization of 126 producers of flowers, fruits, and vegetables for export, commits to expand its workplace training program, Empowering the Source, to an additional 50 member producers, reaching 40,000 workers including 30,000 women workers with health education including family planning, menstrual hygiene, maternal health, and protection from gender-based violence by 2025.

The Ethiopian Horticulture Producer Exporters Association (EHPEA), a membership organization of 126 producers of flowers, fruits, herbs and vegetables for export, commits to expand its workplace training program, Empowering the Source, to an additional 50 member producers, which will reach 40,000 workers, 30,000 of which are women, with education on women’s health by 2025. The program, which was launched in 2014 in partnership with BSR’s HERproject, uses a peer-led model of workplace training that provides education to farm workers key issues like family planning, menstrual hygiene, and maternal health as well as on prevention of and protection from address workplace harassment and gender-based violence. EHPEA will also provide management training for farm administrators on preventing and addressing gender-based violence in addition, EHPEA is committed to advocating for workplace women’s reproductive health and empowerment policy implementation through the horticulture sector and respective government actors in Ethiopia.

EHPEA will ensure workers receive reproductive health and family planning services either through members with clinics or referrals to government health facilities. With its partners, including financial institutions, EHPEA will provide other services like financial management training and management training to empower our workers.

This commitment will be funded through members’ annual subscription, supplemented by charitable contributions to EHPEA.