The Ghana Programme

Programme location and general information

The 2006 programme was located in Tamale, in the northern region of Ghana, a vibrant city full of NGOs . The volunteers lived together in comfortable, reasonably priced accommodation, and everyone was within a bicycle or shared taxi ride of their placement. There was also a kitchen in the accommodation, and although no certified kosher food was available there were plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit and staples such as rice and pasta. Tamale is a small, friendly town and all the volunteers particularly enjoyed the relationships they were able to build with their new colleagues. They invited friends from the NGOs to their home for Friday night dinner and, in return, experienced lots of Ghanaian hospitality and warmth. The volunteers made use of the local cultural centre to learn African drumming and had lessons in Dagbani, the local language. At weekends and after the programme the volunteers visited different parts of the country.

Placements

Please bear in mind that these are examples only, and we cannot guarantee that these placements will be available for future programmes. The information here is intended as a guide only.

*Resource Centre for People with Disabilities - The centre provides a school for children with learning disabilities, a school for guides, a resource centre and a meeting place for Ghana Association of the Blind, Ghana Association of the Deaf and Association for Women with Disabilities and Parents of Children with Disabilities. Volunteers have written fundraising proposals, taught computer skills, English and French, created information leaflets about the Resource Centre and the School for Guides and organised the accounts. You can read more about one volunteer's experience in this placement below.

*Bela Bela Association of Self Help in the Interest of Women – The association runs a micro credit scheme for rural women, giving them small, interest-free loans to enable them to start their own businesses in shea butter extraction, groundnut oil production and other areas. A previous volunteer has advised on development of the scheme, organised the files and accounts and developed materials for writing fundraising proposals.

*Shekhina Clinic – This free clinic provides medical care for destitute people and daily meals for the mentally ill. Volunteers have worked with the Meals on Wheels scheme and in the clinic, registering patients, working in the dispensary, visiting patients and assisting the doctor.

*Common Ground Learner Centre – This is a centre for rural and street children, teaching basic literacy and vocational skills such as bread-making, dress-making, hairdressing, carpentry and so on, and pledging to set up the children in various businesses when they leave. Volunteers have taught literacy, helped out with vocational skills training and come up with fundraising strategies.

*Fulera Maternity Clinic – The clinic provides general health and ante-natal care and deals with pregnancy-related complications. A previous volunteer has given injections, cared for patients and assisted nurses.

Volunteers

Emma Breger – Ghana 2006:

There were seven of us in the group and our placements included teaching in a school for street children, helping in a medical centre and a resource centre for people with disabilities. My placement was with Sam, another Tzedek volunteer, at a local NGO called GIGDEV (Girls Growth and Development). It is based in Jisonayili, a rural community in Tamale, Northern Ghana and has three other centres in neighbouring communities.

The Northern Region of Ghana has a harsh environment and it was very hot during our time there. The rainy season lasts five months from the end of May and is followed by the dry season from October with temperatures reaching 40 degrees Celsius. The main form of livelihood is farming and petty trading with maize, guinea, yam and groundnuts being the four main crops. The Northern Region has the lowest rate of educational enrolment in the country and there are a huge number of girls without access to education. This has led to Kayaye Syndrome, which is where young girls migrate to the south to do ‘head porter’ businesses. GIGDEV reaches out to these girls aiming to transform their lives.

GIGDEV was founded in 1998 by Madame Stella Nitori a retired nurse/midwife and some community activists. The goal of the organization is to educate underprivileged rural girls in profit generating activities, which include dressmaking, batik, tie and dye, catering and hairdressing. Support is also given to girls in other areas such as counseling and HIV/AIDS awareness. The centre also has a nursery, which caters for some of the girls who have children of their own and for children who live in the area.

The Tung-Teija Sheabutter Extraction Women’s Association is also based at GIGDEV. This program was founded in 1995 and teaches how to extract sheabutter, which is then sold to The Body Shop twice a month. This directly supports local backyard gardening and small-scale farming. I was able to visit the project and see how Shea butter is extracted and take some samples away with me. Another of GIGDEV’s projects is the Good Governance and Human Rights program. The main aims of this are to reduce the incidence of child labour and to enhance women’s participation in decision making. As part of this they have developed different forums for children, women and committee leaders and have produced a radio show promoting these issues. However, GIGDEV faces many daily challenges. For example, it has limited means of transportation for effective monitoring and evaluating the girl’s progress.

Sam and I were very warmly welcomed into the organization and made many friends with the girls and people who work there. However, we weren’t given specific jobs as volunteers and it was quite challenging to shape out our own roles. Most of my time was spent at the nursery where I was assisting in the filing system, running activities for the children and creating resources such as games and a songbook. However, it wasn’t easy since the children didn’t speak English and there were very limited resources to run activities with. We also painted murals for the outdoor play area to create a more pleasant environment. One of the bigger projects that we were working on was writing funding proposals, which is vital for the continuation of GIGDEV’s work. During my time at GIGDEV I was able to gain a very good insight into how a local NGO is run.

As well as working we were able to embrace the local culture by enjoying drumming with ‘Jah Love’ our drumming teacher and lessons in the local dialect Dagbani. Moreover, we were able to explore different parts of the country. One of the most memorable trips was a visit to Mole National Park one weekend. We happened to bump into a group of young American Jews on a similar program. Together, we spent a wonderful but rather surreal Shabbat with a box of matzah and a jar of kosher gefilte fish that they found in a supermarket in Accra.

Keeping kosher was generally not a problem since fresh fruit and vegetables were always available as well as eggs, tuna, rice and pasta. One of the things that struck me most about Ghana was the friendliness of the people. This was apparent to me as soon as I stepped off the plane. We had random people inviting themselves over for supper with us almost every night and we made many friends. Moreover, people always wanted to talk to us wherever we went. It was impossible to walk down the road without attracting attention. People would often shout out to us ‘white person!’ but in Dagbani this is ‘silly minger’, which we all found very amusing.

It took some time to adapt to the relaxed Ghanaian way of life and become accustomed to all things African. It was a nonstop and extremely eventful couple of months. Although it certainly was not an easy trip, I think the whole group was thoroughly pleased that they went. We have all learnt an awful lot from our experiences and look forward to sharing them. I have had an incredible time, which I will never forget and strongly encourage others to embark on a Tzedek programme.

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 )

Gabi Sudwarts – Ghana 2004:

I volunteered with Tzedek in Ghana in 2004 and lived with six other volunteers in a house we rented. I worked in a Resource Centre for People with Disabilities with one other volunteer and we chose to help out in the office because we felt we had the most experience to offer them there. I wish I could sum up all that I learnt in a few words but it really is impossible!

I guess there are two sides to the Tzedek experience: one is the fun of travelling, living and working with a bunch of young volunteers, the other is the life-altering experience of living in a developing country and working alongside 'ordinary' people there. We were able to forge true friendships because we got to know people over time- something that you wouldn't really have the opportunity to do if you're backpacking or taking a holiday there. We could therefore appreciate widespread hardship in the country on a personal level, which in turn meant that we were more sympathetic to their cause and more determined to help the developing world on our return. Realistically, there isn't all that much that you can achieve in just two months… but it's a start. And it teaches you to be more appreciative of all that you have here.

Plus, of course, it's a real adventure and a lot of fun to take part in!

Sarah Weston – Ghana 2003:

This summer saw Tzedek's first volunteer programme in Ghana as eight volunteers departed for West Africa at the beginning of the summer for what was to be an unforgettable experience.

While the rest of the group were based in Kumasi , Ghana 's second largest city, myself and another volunteer were fortunate enough to be placed in a rural village in the central region of Ghana . Our placement was with an organisation called the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) and home for the next eight weeks was to be the PPAG clinic in the tiny village of Droboso .

Our first day in Droboso was one of surreal confusion. We were taken to the home of the chief or ‘Nana' who repeatedly assured us there was no trouble in the village and welcomed us warmly. We quickly realised that despite the language barrier, communication could be achieved by what often turned into an amusing mixture of gestures, miming and facial expressions! Our hosts were extremely patient in teaching us the basics of Twi, the local language.

The PPAG clinic, run by two accomplished nurses, offered family planning services, basic medical care and was in the process of setting up a Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) service for rapid HIV testing. Initially, we observed the nurses advise and treat clients, accompanied them on several outreach visits to nearby villages and gained a general overview about the nature of PPAG's work.

As Tzedek aims to convey to participants before their departure, one of the major challenges of volunteering is that of carving out a role for oneself since it is very unusual for a host organisation to clearly define their expectations of a volunteer. PPAG is a national and well funded organisation and it was an amazing opportunity for us to observe such a professional and effective NGO. However, it also became clear that having no medical training, our participation in clinic activities was limited. Consequently, we decided to make links with other organisations which were interested in outreach work, so we could use our skills to educate the community about safe sex and HIV/AIDS prevention, one of PPAG's main priorities and a growing concern of the Ghanaian government.

Our investigations led us to the district office of Ghana Educational Service (GES) where we were able to devise a programme that allowed us to visit schools in the district and give HIV/AIDS education. We also conducted a series of talks at the local school in Droboso.

One of the best aspects of my summer as a volunteer was the varied nature of the work. Travelling to different schools allowed us to become more involved in various communities, sharing teaching resources and ideas and participating in an AIDS awareness march. As a result of our connection with the schools we were invited to travel to several villages to give HIV education, demonstrate the use of condoms and try to answer and discuss the challenging questions and debates that our talk provoked.

Living in Droboso meant settling into the rhythms of village life which entailed early nights and very early mornings. Ghanaians are extremely warm, hospitable and friendly. Indeed, on several occasions we had to explain why, since it was the middle of the day, we were unable to consume the large amounts of home brewed palm wine and millet beer they so generously offered us! Living among Ghanaians allowed us to appreciate and respect the local culture and try as best as we could to support the fantastic educational work of both organisations and individuals in the area. We were staying in a religiously diverse area and visited both Muslim and Christian schools. Ghanaians are respectful and tolerant of different religious beliefs and were as interested to learn about Judaism as we were to learn about their religion, although explaining Shabbat and kashrut was not always easy.

Ultimately as many Tzedek volunteers discover, the Tzedek experience is a learning one and I feel privileged to have been welcomed into the community of Droboso and to have had such a challenging, rewarding and unique experience.

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