Ghana Community Building Project - constructing houses in local communities

If you’re on a gap year, summer placement, or career break and want to get your hands dirty, our Community Building Project in Ghana may be right for you. Following the success of our building project in the Akuapem Hills, we now run a second building project in Cape Coast.

Volunteers who join this project are based either in Kwamoso in the Akuapem Hills or in a small village near Cape Coast.

The Akuapem Hills are located about an hour north of Accra and Cape Coast is three hours to the west. Whichever location you work in you will join a team of Projects Abroad volunteers and local people constructing simple buildings in the local communities.

Volunteer Building Project in Ghana with Projects Abroad

In many areas of Ghana, thousands of families live in inadequate accommodation and children attend school in crumbling buildings. Our construction project allows them to move to new, better quality homes and for the children to receive an education in secure, new classrooms.

The buildings are usually made from mud bricks that are produced by using a press, some mud and water, and then left to harden in the sun. Volunteers help in this process and also with building walls, plastering, and painting. Each house takes an average of one month to construct.

In addition to the basic project, you may also help with landscaping the surrounding area, painting local schools, and renovating classrooms. In the past, volunteers even built a library for Kwamoso village school.

Volunteering on the Community Building Project in Ghana

painting in Ghana

This is a great opportunity to get involved in a rural project and become an integral part of the local community. Our full time regional coordinators live nearby and visit the placements regularly, so you'll always have full support from Projects Abroad.

Building work takes place early in the morning and late in the afternoon to avoid the hot midday sun, so you'll have plenty of time to get involved in Ghanaian life. Many volunteers immerse themselves in the local community by helping around the kindergarten class or playing soccer with some of the school children once the building work has finished for the day.

This project is available for two weeks if you don't have time to join us for a month or more. it has been selected by our local colleagues as being suitable for short term volunteering for both the host community and the volunteer. Although you will gain a valuable cultural insight and work intensely within the local community, please be aware that you may not be able to make the same impact as someone volunteering for a longer period.

Catherine Hughes volunteered with Projects Abroad on this project. She tells us:

"Yes the volunteers provide welcome helping hands on the building site; enabling the projects to reach completion before the rains come and wash any unfinished structures away, but the projects would not be possible in the first place without the money coming from volunteers' fees through Projects Abroad. These not only help to supply tools and materials to the building site but extend beyond the building site into the communities we are placed in. For a rural family, reliant on agriculture and market forces to make a living, a steady income from taking a volunteer into their home can also make a real difference to their lives, as can the seemingly small amounts of money the volunteers themselves bring with them and spend in the community."

Community Garden Project

volunteers building in Ghana

If you choose to take part in the Community Building Project and would also like to work in the Akuapem Hills, you could help for a couple of hours in the afternoons on our Community Garden Project. This project is in the early stages of development and can be combined with your building experience.

The Community Garden is based just ten minutes away from the Akuapem Hills regional office. Volunteers are responsible for maintaining all aspects of the garden, which includes animal care, crop growing, flower production, herb cultivation, and land management. They also arrange school trips to the farm to educate local children.

Produce that is grown in the garden includes small quantities of oranges, plantain, papaya, carrots, onions, yam and herbs that are used as remedies for medicinal purposes. The garden is also home to rabbits, guinea pigs, geese and, once the pond is complete, fish.

Volunteers arrange trips for local schools to visit the site. Children are educated on the process of growing crops in a sustainable environment. They also learn how to take care of animals as well as identify seeds and produce herbs. Volunteers receive training from local specialists in the different techniques and have an agricultural textbook that is part of the curriculum to use with the school children.

In the future, we hope to develop the garden into a sustainable, organic farm. We will continue to work closely with the local community and pass on a vital awareness of conservation issues to a new generation of African children. Please let us know if you are interested in this project when you apply.

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