Projects Abroad, Newsletters from Ghana

Celebrated by the people of Agave, in the Volta Region, in the month of February. It is an annual traditional thanksgiving festival of the Agave people. In every February, the chiefs and people of the Agave traditional area celebrate their annual Dzawuwu festival at Dabala, their chief commercial centre.

Hilma Valkema, who is a medical volunteer with Projects Abroad at the Akuapem Hills donated pencils, erasers, toys and games to the Holy Hills complex in Kwamoso. Receiving the items on behalf to the school, the head teacher thanked Miss Hilma Valkema for her kind gesture to the school and promised that the items will put to good use.

Yensiso Methodist School is in one of the villages in Akuapem Hills, Eastern Region. The school is not one of our partners for sending volunteers to. However that does not stop Projects Abroad from lending a helping hand whenever the school calls on us. The head teacher of the school came to the office and requested our assistance. Her school needed a classroom for the Nursery Pupils.

Cantonments FC continues to be an exciting place to be, as the academy continues to develop, with the assistance of volunteers from Projects Abroad. This month, progress has been rapidly assisted by significant donations of equipment from Dave Oswell, a volunteer from Australia. While Dave is only in Ghana for 2 weeks he has had a huge impact; in addition to donating equipment he has had some interesting training ideas which the senior players in particular have enjoyed.

It doesn't happen all that often. But sometimes, I sit here and I think, "Life isn't that bad for some of these people". I get desensitised, and feel comfortable. Surely enough though, something will eventually come around and knock (or Enoch!) so sense into me. This time, it hit me hard. My teaching placement has been great and I have felt quite positive from my time there, but last week I took up an opportunity to go with the Projects Abroad Medical Outreach team and journey out to an underprivileged village.

The end of this month saw the return of our monthly party, where all Projects Abroad volunteers and staff in Ghana have the opportunity to come together to have fun. At the end of last month, on the 31st of July one such gathering took place in Accra. All our volunteers in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region, Akuapem Hills in the Eastern Region, Cape Coast in the Central region, Accra in Greater Accra region, Ho and Hohoe in the Volta region were invited to the party.

2 Week Special volunteers in Cape Coast are doing a great job painting and renovating the Lady Heike School and the Abura Literacy School. For the past 2 weeks, these volunteers have painted almost the entirety of Lady Heike School and a wall has being built around one of the classroom blocks.

On a wonderfully sunny and perfect day, the "Oguaaman Rugby Festival" organised by none other than Projects Abroad‟s very own George Lapido took place. Watching the three matches played that day were the volunteers from Cape Coast who had turned out to support Tom, Colin and Will as they joined members of Central Regional Rugby Academy on the pitch against the visiting team, Cowley Rugby Club, from Lagos, Nigeria.

Early last month, the Projects Abroad demonstration farm situated at Safro in Akuapem, in the north of eastern region, was moved to Mamfe Methodist Junior High. This is to make it easily accessible to more schools.

Volunteers (Fabienne de lanay, Rowena) at New Life international orphanage in Cape Coast organised a talent show for the residents of the orphanage. New Life is one of the biggest and most interesting placements in the town of Cape Coast.

One of the most important days in a woman's life is the day she gets married. A wedding day in one of our rural communities involves the bride and groom being adorned in a beautiful traditional cloth (Kente).The people in the village get very involved in the celebrations and bear witness to the union. As is the norm, one of the eldest, married men in the village pours a libation to give thanks to the gods for the occasion. He also prays to the gods to bless the new couple with many offspring.

Shops and supermarkets are overflowing with red and pink stuffed animals, heart-shaped balloons and endless amounts of chocolate and candy. Why not celebrate Valentine’s by giving a homemade card to your host family or friends? Enjoy the day and spread the love!

Ghana has been a hive of activity recently with the long drawn out presidential election and subsequent inauguration of prof John Evans Atta Mills of the NDC as new Head of State. We hope that this means only good things for Ghana.

December 1st of every year is marked as World AIDS day. As part of this, after educating the children at New Life Orphanage, medical volunteers organised a quiz competition on HIV/AIDS. It was a very exciting competition but at the end of it a group calling itself HIV HUNTERS emerged as winners. They were presented with their prizes of books and fruit juice.

Aspiring journalist Francesca Freeman, 21, wanted to step out of the regular western newsrooms and experience something more challenging, demanding, and certainly different from what she was used to, and so she embarked on her Projects Abroad journey and signed up to participate in Ghana's journalism programme at the Statesman for 2 months.

Thanks to Projects Abroad, that gave us the financial support to fulfill one of the big dreams of the children from our orphanage: we took them for one day to the Lake Bosumtwi. We are Isabelle and Maxie and we work now in Cherubs Orphanage in Ampatia near Kumasi for respectively two and four months, and the children asked us many times to go there. The week before we arranged two tro-tros and also a cooker that prepared a meal for lunch. On Sunday, 9^th of December, we started in the morning. The children were all very well dressed and so excited that they sang and played drums all the time on the way to the lake.

>In a change to the usual party at the office, this month volunteers and staff set up base on a rather attractive beach in Teshie Nungua. Volunteers from all the regions met at the office bright and early to be taken by tro. As expected this received many stares from the locals with such a large amount of Obruni’s congregated together!

October’s end of month party took on a spooky Halloween theme, with the office transformed into a den of skeletons, ghosts, witches, bats and pumpkins! Volunteers from all the regions gathered at dusk just as the local bats were flying overhead lending a suitable mood to the proceedings! Accra’s very own Kat Pugh, Becky Hathway and Katie Drew easily won the prize for the best costume! In addition to the party’s usual drinks, food and dancing, a competition was made, with each region having four representatives.

This month in the Kumasi region, a major traditional festival took place. This was the festival of Akwasidea, in which all of the chiefs of Ashanti region gather in order to display their rich culture from their towns. Jelka Kiene, 24 years old from Germany, went along with a doctor from Suntreso Government Hospital where she works, to find out more about it and to take some wonderful photographs such as this one.

Central Regional Hospital - described as the referral hospital - is located in Cape Coast close to Abura, a suburb of the town. It moved to its current location in 2000 and consequently is one of Ghana most modern hospitals. It is also the biggest hospital in the region with approximately 20 Doctors, 40 Nurses, 100 beds and a wide range of departments for the volunteers to become involved in. Central Regional Hospital was one of the first medical placements in Ghana, having taken volunteers for more than five year.

Sadly it is not uncommon for pupils in some parts of the country to learn under appalling conditions. Classrooms, if they have them, often appear to be temporary structures - no roofs, no doors, insufficient and broken chairs and desks, along with a severe lack of instructional materials.