Our Community Collaboration

Our local partner, Community Empowerment Resources, is a community-based, non-profit organization in rural Northern Ghana. CER collaborates with diverse stakeholders including traditional leaders and elders, women, parents, and youth. Their goals include education, job training, environmental conservation, improved agriculture, food security, and gender equity. All projects are selected and implemented by community members with a focus on long-term sustainability and empowerment. 



CER was founded by Walisu Alhassan (pictured below). Originally working with two village communities, CER now includes nine villages of over 15,000 residents.



Engage Globally has been collaborating with CER (formerly CRI) since 2013. We began by funding a one room learning center for 30 students and now support education and economic development with over 600 children, youth, and women. Engage provides financial assistance and capacity building, while emphasizing mutual learning and cooperation.

Community Empowerment Resources (CER)

Walisu Alhassan

Founder and Director of CER

​"I started CER because of my life story as a young boy who lost my Dad at the age of 8 and was adopted by my uncle who couldn't afford to provide for me.

I had to care for myself at a young age by being a shoe shiner, cleaning gutters of government residential homes, weeding, and more... just any thing to get some money and support myself in school. At some point in my life, hunger was something normal. 

To cut a long story short, all this hunger and no school or supplies made me want to start something that could create a change and chance for children and youth in rural communities in Northern Ghana to get access to education and empower women in our communities. So, creating change in rural communities is why I founded CER."

Walisu founded CER, in collaboration with traditional leaders and women farmers, in 2012. He now leads a team of 25 local staff and continues to organize rural communities to pursue their sustainable development goals.