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Published: March 2nd 2005
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Wind Turbine at a rural school
As part of my film-making activity, we got to shoot at a school which has distance education powered by wind turbines. So, for those of you who can't read the French part, well everything is going quite well, despite a bit of culture shock. I have made some great friends, in the names of Seth and Augustin, 2 co-workers and Gilbert, a room-mate who studies at the Ghana Polytechnique.
So about this culture shock! Well the truth is that the 4 weeks before my arrival in Ghana (between the Philippines, Indonesia, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal), I was living at about twice my normal rate, and that life in Ghana is about a fourth of my normal rate... so that was quite the drop! It was also quite the change from the Philippines in that first, it is a drop 40 positions down the Human Development Index and second, all of my usual references and resources where gone. After my first day at work, I even found out that I didn't have a job, and that I would have to create it. Looking back, I laugh because this is specifically why I love to do this, but I have to say that my mind was a bit scartered for the first month!
As a little background, I am here on an
The school and wind turbine
An outside view of the wind turbine and school. Engineers Without Borders placement in Ghana during which I will be working with EntrepriseWorks Ghana, an American NGO who has offices in many countries, namely Ghana.
So where does this lead us? Well, the pump project (micro irrigation technique, man-powered) that I was supposed to promote has run out of money, so looking for more money is the first of my jobs. Second, I have been working on a ceramic extractor tool and another ceramic sculpting tool (a jigga-jolly), which will help entrepreneurs that build a fuel efficient stove, do more stoves for less! Finally, this week, I will get to go out in the field (by motorbike!) to check-up on some wind turbines that where installed by the World Bank (or THE BANK, for some) and report to them that it is probably not the best idea... but first, I am directing a promo video for them about the project! Call me George Lucas and get ready for some special effects! :D
So I should be working on most of these projects for the first months, and for the next ones, I will probably either work on these pumps (if funding comes through), or work on a
Wind turbine cleaning
So more of our shotting. Please notice the WHOLE community around, including the chickens! plastic recylcing feasibility study ordered by USAID, or finally help promote water filters to rural communities. All of these projects sound quite interresting to me because they tackle some pretty deap questions as "what does Ghana need the most right now", and makes it contrast with "what funders are interrested in supporting". And within all of this, I must define my personnal role.
In ordre to help me with all of this, I have developped a small grid in which I input the changes that I wish to see in my organisation or its projects, or sorry, rather the questions or concerns that I have about them, and I compare them with the level of trust I need to aquire in the organisation to be able to tackle those issues. For example, changing an extractor drawing can (and was done) on my first day, while questionning the organisation's direction in terms of funding and project, I hope to achieve this only much later. In the mean time, I hope I will get to influence some of their spending and budgeting practices. And obviously, even if I do get the trust level to accomplish all of these, I am not even sure I can trust myself to be such a good guide! That's development, baby! (Thanks Sarah!)
But speaking of guide, one of the questions that does bother me the most is really was is my role, or more widely, the role of Engineers Without Borders in the NGO industry of Sub-Sahara Africa. From my first "evaluation of Ghanaians", I find them to be very very smart! They also work very hard, in offices like in the field, much harder than most of us up North (the people in my office work hard 9 to 12 hours a day)! The one thing I see is that unfortunelty, is they do not have access to the same knowledge infrastructure as we do. Most of them have limited schooling (mainly because of money and infrastruture), and the quality of their even basic education is limited. So, I guess this is what I am here for: transfer some of my "quality education" to the people of Entreprise Works such that they can do their work better. Now the challenges becomes to see how my McGill education translates into NGO funding and strategy issues! I promise the answer to that one shortly! 😉
Alright, enough said. All of this cannot be serious, I've only been here for 2 weeks!
Later folks!
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