I have set up this site to post pictures, comments, stories and to be able to communicate with friends while working and living in West Africa for the next six months.

From January 27 to March 30 I will be in Benin working with Youth Challenge International on youth empowerment and employment programs as well as HIV/AIDS awareness. This is the first time that YCI and Oxfam Quebec have worked in Benin and it should be really exciting to help set up the program.
Benin is the "heartland" of Voodoo (animism) and I am very excited to learn about the history of the region, slavery, its impact and the challenges of development.

From March 30 to April 14 I will be traveling in Morocco.

April 14 to June 1 I will be living in Ghana with Cross-Cultural Solutions working on small business development projects focused on women. The Ghana program has 3 components- community service, cultural learning, and research. The community service is the volunteer work. Cultural learning is a series of events and workshops aimed at learning about the Ghanaian culture as well as the home situations of the international interns. Finally, for the research project, CCS helps those interested in meeting with those people connected to their research topic, access information, and facilitate the travel necessary. I will be looking at the ecomomic development projects currently underway in Ghana and their attempt in the near future to extend the PRSPs to the volta region (where I will be), I am hoping to study the potential social impacts of these projects.

Anyway...keep in touch

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