Blogs from Northern, Ghana, Africa - page 13

To debuy! Time fort another update, I’ve had a really good week so there’s lots to say! I have been working in Savelugu/Nanton district, out of their office in Pong-Tamale. Pong-Tamale is a small community about 30km north of Tamale. They have been very good about trying to get me to experience as much as possible. This week I was working directly with agricultural extension agents (AEAs) on some projects as well as with other members of the district development office staff. AEA’s are the front line workers who actually implement all the programs run by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. They work directly with communities and farmers to help them increase their agricultural productivity. One of these activities was setting up and distributing resources for demonstrations to be carried out by each of the ... read more

Nau Guorum Reporting in once again from good ol’ Tamale. Another update, before things are abt to change drastically. For the past 4 weeks I’ve been working here at the regional office. I’ve been through 4 different departments (last week I wrote abt 2, this week I’ll write abt the other 2 - post harvest and animal traction). But next week I’m heading out to the districts! Yay! First I will spend two weeks in Savelugu, which is just north of Tamale (maybe 15 min drive – I’ll be able to still live at home) and then after that we’ll play it by ear. Maybe I’ll rotate through some other districts, maybe if things are going well I’ll focus my work there and just do some visits to the other districts. My weeks at the regional ... read more

Here's some first impressions and how my time in Ghana started out :) 11 EWB short term volunteers arrived in Accra, the capital of Ghana around 7 at night on Sunday May 8. That was exactly 24hrs after we had left our hostel in Toronto for the airport. (We had a 7 hr layover in Amsterdam). First Impressions? It was dark hot and humid! The hot and humid I had expected, but the dark, I hadn’t expected that at all, but it makes sense, being so close to the equator it gets dark between 6 and 6:30. The long term volunteers met us at the airport. It was really good to be met, I think we would have been fairly lost otherwise! We got some cabs to take us to our hostel/guest house. And then went ... read more

Hello McGill EWB Team! I hope this finds you well and rested from the Easter Holiday, and not too burned-out from the end-of-semester assignments and fundraising efforts! I have decided to write-up this special post on my blog such that you have a better idea of my work here, as well as a better idea of the development realities I am facing at the time. Hope you will find the read enjoyable and thought provoking! Quick overview: So as some of you might know, the small-scale irrigation project the McGill team and I were tied to ran out of funds last December. This means that since then, there is no one in the EnterpriseWorks (our partner NGO) office working on it, and no office resources (vehicles, promotion expenses, travel expenses) can be allocated to it. This ... read more