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Published: October 28th 2007
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The Volunteers
From Left to Right: Me, Emmanuel, Renee, KK, Danielle, Elvis, Esenam Since the last time I posted I have started work, traveled to the North and back, and celebrated my 21st birthday! Whew, it's been a busy week! My trip to Wa was really good -- it was great to see the other WUSC volunteers again (there's 7 of us -- 3 Canadians and 4 Ghanaians) and we all did our orientation together. So it was nice to have a little reunion -- we had lots of delicious dinners (I thoroughly enjoyed Guinea Fowl, which is sort of like chicken, but tougher and saltier) and drank lots of beer 😊. The actual reason we were there though was for the Annual Sector Meeting for the Uniterra project in Ghana.
Let me back up a little bit and explain more about the organization I'm working for and the project I'm a part of. I have been officially hired by the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) which is a Canadian NGO whose mission statement is to improve the lives of people around the world using the most important tool we have -- education. The latest program that WUSC is operating is called Uniterra, which is operating in 13 countries across Asia, Africa,
Brainstorming Session
Aren't we working hard?! and South America. The basis of Uniterra is CAPACITY BUILDING. Instead of going into countries with their own projects and ideas about development, Uniterra is designed to work with existing local NGO's, civil society organizations and the government to improve their systems and projects. A major aspect of capacity building is ensuring that these NGOs have the knowledge and skills to properly implement successful development programs. Hence, Uniterra supports these organizations by providing "volunteers" (many of whom are actually professionals in the development field who have their masters) to various projects in order to train members in any number of things. In Ghana, the Uniterra project is working to support basic education with a focus on girl children. Some of the things that volunteers do here is to train partner organizations on gender advocacy tools and community sensitivity to the importance of sending your girl child to school.
Whew! OK, so pretty much the fact that I can outline all of that to you was how the meeting was beneficial to me! I learned a lot more about the Uniterra project, it's partners, and proper reporting formats (which will be really helpful down the road when I need to
send in fund requests and to report on my final contributions). So apart from the meeting and the friends, I also really enjoyed the ride up! Granted it took us two days the first time, stopping in a town called Sunyani for the night, and then a total of 17 hours on Friday to get back, but it was still beautiful! It doesn't take much of a drive out of Accra for the forest to take over again and when it does, it is just thick, lush tropical forest rolling on gentle hills as far as the eye can see! It seems that the majority of Ghana's 22 million people reside in bigger cities and towns, however along the road it was common to drive through little villages with the typically pictured mud hut and thatched roof. It was certainly an interesting view and really gave me a sense of how much more simply and naturally people lead their lives here. After the first night in Sunyani we began to truly head north (to get there you travel a little north, but then straight east across the country). The landscape began to change into savannah, however it always remained a
combination between tropical forest and savannah, never getting as dry as it does in more northern countries like Burkina Faso. I took lots of pictures from the car and also quite a few in Wa, including a beautiful sunset, which I have included here.
After coming back from Wa, I am now finishing my first official week at work, and so far so good! It looks like they are going to have a lot of work for me to do and I am going to get to experience various levels of the development process from national, to regional, to district. The partner organization that I am working for is the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC). Their mission is to improve access and quality to free, compulsory basic education for all Ghanaian children and they do this primary through advocacy and research. As a Coalition, GNECC has members from various civil society organizations and other NGOs as well as good ties with the government and other important policy makers to whom they lobby issues in education to in order to see change at the highest level. I am working in their National Secretariat, or headquarters, in Accra and have
A stop in at one of the little villages I was describing
The car I was with would stop in some villages and towns to get good produce because the stuff up North (such as yams, plantains, and onions) are much better! been given lots of interesting tasks so far. I have read a lot of reports regarding education in Ghana as well as some research papers the organization did. From this, I created the format for a round table discussion with key stakeholders in policy making in Ghana, which when the funds are released I will be responsible for setting up logistically. I have also been planning the GNECC Regional Coordinators meeting, editing various reports, cross checking progress reports from the different regions, and a range of other tasks. So far it's pretty interesting, but I am really looking forward to getting to work at the regional level. At the meeting in Wa, I met the Coordinator for the Eastern Region, Mr. Batsa, who requested my help (as a volunteer, I come with sector funds in order to implement the training/capacity building WUSC wants me to do) in continuing a project that Corinne, the last UofT volunteer here, was working on. This means I am going to get to do a one day re-orientation workshops for the District Education for All Teams (DEFATs) on budget monitoring, accountability, and tracking tools for the capitation grant (the governments funding for education). From there,
each team will go out into their districts and track the use of the capitation grant to make sure that schools are receiving the amount they should be and that the funds are being used appropriately. In this way, the DEFATs are beginning to create a system of accountability for community and government level projects, an aspect of development that is sorely lacking within the country. From there, I will get to collect their data, analyze it, and put it into an official report that will be disseminated at all levels of the government and the organization in order to lobby for the necessary changes. All in all, it sounds pretty exciting! I haven't started the second project yet, so I'm sure there will be more updates down the road. For now, I sometimes feel as if I am in an office job like my last three years back at home! At least the work I get is more interesting though 😊
Other then that, not too much in my life outside work is new. I am officially becoming a pro at the tro tro, as I can reliably get to and from work everyday on it and have
Gigantic Ant Hill!
The ants around here are nuts, seriously. This is just one of many ant/termite hills that one can find lying all over Ghana. come up with a system (working form 7 - 4 instead of 8 - 5) which means I spend at least an hour less on the tro tro because traffic is WAY better at 4 then 5! I did nothing crazy for my birthday either... got stuck in a crazy rainstorm, got home well after 7, ate some beans and toast, and privately toasted myself on my 21st with a glass of beer! Although low key, it was good, and really made me appreciate the overall insignificance of a birthday! Not that I didn't appreciate all the wonderful birthday wishes 😊 -- thanks again! Still working on the friendship side of things -- it's much more challenging here as being a white woman there's a lot of cat calling and inappropriate people approaching you to "be their freind", however as it is never easy to tell someone's true intentions, I get my back up a lot. I did meet someone on the tro tro this week though -- his name is Raf and he lives in my neighborhood and I did not get a creepy feeling from him, so I figured what's the harm in trying to make atleast one
Tropical forest along the side of the road
... and a vendor's head got caught in the bottom right :P freind?! I am supposed to meet up with him this evening, so hopefully my gut feeling was right and I will be on my way to a friendship. Hope all is well with everyone back at home -- I will post again soon 😊
Lots of love,
Courtney
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