I am now back from my volunteering in Ghana, which was a truly amazing, overwhelming and emotional experience which is one the best things I have ever decided to do. J
Our volunteer placement was at a primary/junior school called Dedzidi in Anloga, in the Volta region of Ghana, close to the border with Togo.
The location was roughly 3 hours drive from the capital Accra – and you could tell only a few westerners had ever travelled there as many of the kids had never seen white people before.
Volunteering at the school
The school is currently building new classrooms to replace the makeshift tin-roofed, sandy-floored, palm-leafed-walled existing ones and so part of our task was to help with manual labour, and as they have no machinery to help build, not even a cement mixer, literally everything was done by hand, including us all fetching and carrying the hardcore for the foundations. J
We also had the opportunity to teach in the classrooms, something I was indecisive about but when the chance arose, I actually did – thrown into the deep end teaching French (why make it easy on myself J) to kids who I think knew about the same as me! I also taught Maths and Science. In comparison to the UK – the kids there actually wanted to be there and learn.
All in all we did four days at the school, and by the time we left, a very large section of the foundations for the new classrooms had been laid.
The work was hot as labouring on sand in 30 degree heat – but we as a group we loved every minute. We really all felt like we’d made a difference and those foundations will be tread upon by generations of schoolchildren to come.
Life generally in Ghana
The kids at the school where we volunteered were really the lucky ones, if that’s the right word. There is no free education in Ghana and if you are poor – you work for the family, with absolutely no chance of school. Uncommonly for Africa, Ghana is very stable, with no army coups or civil wars since independence from Britain in 1957.
The money raised from the sponsorship was directly helping the community and particularly supplying funds in order than orphans could eat and attend the school where we worked.
There were kids with apparent learning disabilities sleeping rough outside the school, but being such a poor country, there is simply no infrastructure to help them. The group as a whole made a few small gestures – buying water and biscuits to the kids who in turn helped with the labour. The average daily wage is 3 Ghana Cedis – or 75p. Put in context – a can of Coke was also 3 Cedis meaning most of the kids had never had Coke (cue some curious reactions when we bought some cans for some of the kids J)
Please get in touch if you want any more information about what we did or any pictures (I took 1132), or publicity with myself or Burnley FC.
I hope you enjoy the pictures and once again thanks very much for sponsoring me to take part in this fantastic project. I can assure you that your generosity has made a real difference. J
Stuart