Joel Clark – Ghana 2004
Standing behind their desks in a dingy classroom in Tamale, a town in the Northern Region of Ghana, forty teenage girls are singing songs and nursery rhymes. The heat of the sun outside is reflected on their young faces, tired from days without sufficient food. Most of them have never been to school. They live in rural areas and their farming families cannot afford the small amount of money needed to properly educate their children. Some of these young girls already have children themselves. Others are orphans. Many are ravaged by illness - malnourishment, exhaustion or malaria. But they have come together in this small classroom through a remarkable lady called Charlotte Baah. A qualified teacher from Ghana and the wife of a Methodist Minister, Mrs Baah decided a few years ago that she could not live with the terrible suffering endured by children in the rural areas of Northern Ghana . So she opened the Common Ground Learner Centre in Tamale - a small scale project that takes deprived teenagers for one year and teaches them vocational skills as well as basic literacy and numeracy. Through Tzedek - a London-based Jewish charity which supports projects in the developing world - I had the wonderful opportunity of working at Common Ground this summer. I was part of a group of seven, living in a tiny house in Tamale and working in several different placements, ranging from a maternity clinic to a resource centre for people with disabilities.
Living and working in Ghana provided an invaluable chance to see Africa in a way that cannot quite be experienced when travelling. We formed close relationships with the people we met and I know that I will never forget some of the wonderful characters we came into contact with. People in Ghana live an exceptionally hard life, full of difficulties that simply don't affect us in England . Merely walking down the road in Tamale opened our eyes to the daily struggles of Ghanaian life. Women traders walk by the side of the road, tiny babies swathed on their backs, supported not by any well-designed baby carrier, but by a length of thin material. They carry heavy weights on their heads: mangoes, pineapples, tomatoes, yams. They take them to the market where they desperately try to sell enough to feed their children and to meet the costs of running a family. But if these costs are not met, the consequences are severe. It may mean not eating for a day or even a week. It could mean not being able to afford vital medicine and healthcare for sick children. By the side of the road, people beg for money. Some are blind or disabled. Others are just poor, without the means or the skills to earn an independent living. Mothers sit on the curb, breast-feeding their children. Men cycle along the road, large piles of firewood strapped to the frames of their bikes. Cycling for hours in the heat in a frantic effort to earn money. In a hut nearby, a large group of men are crowded round a small television in a shop, watching their national team compete in the Olympics. This is the same keen interest in sport that is so common in England , but shown in such contrasting surroundings.
The lives of certain individuals we met opened my eyes to the tragedy of African Life. One of the teachers at the Common Ground Learner Centre is called Rose. She is only 18 - three years younger than me. Yet she has lived a life immeasurably harder than mine. Abandoned by her mother as a baby, she was brought up in Tamale by her grandmother. But several years ago she was raped and became pregnant. She is now the mother of a 2 year old girl, and works desperately hard to support her baby and her elderly grandmother. She earns less than £15 per month and life, as for so many Ghanaians, is a daily struggle. But what impressed me so much about Rose was her wonderful attitude to life, her positive outlook and the love that she gives to her child. Despite her difficulties, she always laughed and smiled and she became a true friend to us. It is symptomatic of her bright outlook that Rose named her baby Bless. She hopes that in a few years time she will be able to send her to school.
When I returned home in September, I was immediately taken aback by the huge differences between England and what we had seen of Ghana . It seemed a different world. I could hardly believe that the same sun setting over my home in Birmingham was also setting over West Africa . Over a land of dirt roads, of heat and dust. A land of colour. I am so fortunate and grateful to have had the privilege of seeing that land and meeting some of its people.
(This article, Time Out in Ghana ,appeared in GradJobs Magazine in 2004 )
