Take Our Daughter to Work Day (TODTWD) Program

Interested in doing a fun, fast and beneficial, program for young
women to encourage self-esteem, emphasize the value of continuing
education, raise awareness of future career options, and forge
relationships with women professionals as potential mentors?! Read
on...

Goals of the project:
* Empower students to pursue and develop goals for the future
*Encourage continuing education; academics or technical skills to
acquire new life skills
*Provide examples of various career opportunities in the future
*Promote positive mentorship between youth and adults
* Acknowledge the success of women in the workplace
*Emphasize to parents the intent of the program and the value of education
*Follow- up with participants and family to verify the success of the program
This program is funded by North American Women's Association (NAWA)
and is available for 20 volunteers to receive 50 cedis for an activity
of their choice that meet the above goals. Volunteers can choose to
collaborate to pool resources or plan larger event. Note: the money is
reimbursed AFTER the requirements of the project is completed.

Some ideas for activities to do with girls include:
-visit Secondary Schools, Training colleges or Universities, meet with
current students or women working there.
-Shadow and visit business women in regional or district capitals
-Visit with women holding positions in banking or finance
-Network with Ghanaian offices- District Capital, the Girl Child
Education Office with GES
Thoughts:
- consider your criteria for selecting girls: applications/essays,
need-based, career oriented
-show them a wide range of careers; outside the field of teaching and nursing
-talk with parents about the benefits for the girls to participate,
encourage their support for her goals
-Mentors can be from within or outside community; pros and cons to both
-Plan ahead, inform the mentors prior as to what the intent and
purpose of the visit is
-The funding is NOT intended to be payed to the mentor but rather for
transport/ food/activity for girls. Make sure this is clear in advance
with Mentor(s).
-Have back up plans and/or mentor(s) incase of last minute cancellations

To Apply: First come, first serve basis
Notify Kjerstin your project plan first by phone: 020 735 6400 and
then via GYDghana@gmail.com, Subject line: TODTWD.
Requirements after you complete the project include:
   1) an evaluation form that Kjerstin will provide
   2) submit a digital photo of the event to GYD email
   3) have students write a thank you note to the funding source,
North American Women's Association (NAWA).
** After the project is complete and the above post-requirements are
complete the money will be reimbursed. The deadline for completion is
May 31.

The strength of a woman

Looking into my friend’s bloodshot eyes I can see that she is tired. She wipes the sweat from her brow with a dirty rag, and smiles at me as she rolls the cloth and strategically places it on her head.  She calls three other women over to help her lift an enormous sack of onions. I watch her bend down as they lift the sack and I see that she has lost weight; her shoulders, back and arms are rock-hard. Once the sack is positioned comfortably on her head she turns and says she is “going to come;” I take a seat on a bench. Onlookers gawk at me, surprised to see a white lady amongst the grit and grind. It is an area of Kumasi called Racecourse; it looks very much like a shanty ghetto, the structures all made from rotting plywood and scrap metal; the environment is hot and crowded, dirt paths snake between shacks as though pedestrians have been cautious not to step in muddy patches and filth.  Litter covers every square foot of the ground… 

“I’m going to market in Wa” – that is what she told me before she left and never came back.

I started to ask around; it seemed as though people were hesitant to tell me any information about her. Finally her sister told me that they had talked on the phone – she had gone to Kumasi to work. If it was as simple as that, I thought, then she would have just told me. She was my friend. Why would she have lied?  I continued to press the issue and find out what exactly had caused her to just run away without telling me. As the story unraveled it became clear why she left. 

Her husband had impregnated a young girl – my friend was crushed. She had been married to this man for six years, they had two children together. When this girlfriend found out she was pregnant, and that the husband would also wed her, she started to tease and provoke my friend. She would publically embarrass her at the borehole:  claiming the husband loved her more, that she was new, that he would soon forget his old wife. This provided an open forum for the community to gossip about the problems my friend was facing. 

My friend has only completed P-6 and can barely speak English; reading or writing is out of the question. She is also strong – a hard worker who, throughout her childhood, had been encouraged to be on the farm as opposed to attending school. At this point, with a life full of farming ahead of her, no education to fall back on, and two children to raise, the challenge of handling a new wife was too much for her to bear.  Living in the village, heartbroken and repeatedly taunted, was an impossible prospect. She had to get away; she had to go to Kumasi where she could make her own money and feel some sort of independence; to feel control over her situation.  She wanted to show the women she could overcome what they were saying about her.  Six months passed until I heard her voice again.

Currently a third-year PCV in Cape Coast, I served my first two years in a small village in the Upper West Region. The three northern regions, in comparison with the rest Ghana, are predominantly underdeveloped and deeply influenced by Islam. Most of the population is illiterate and their main livelihood is sustenance farming. Through the circumstances of poverty, lack of education and various social obstacles the women of the north are at a great disadvantage. Many of the young girls are discouraged to attend school as it is seen to be a waste of family resources (females are considered more useful on the farm). And education isn’t seen as a way to feed hungry bellies – it is a long-term investment that many homes cannot afford.  It’s not uncommon for families to participate in the tradition of marrying off their young daughters to remove the stress of another mouth to feed in an already-impoverished household. 

When it comes to work, there is a noticeable difference in the amount women are expected to complete daily versus men.  Both attend farm and have various jobs to complete, but women are also given the tasks of firewood collection, caring for the children and bringing back the harvest.  It is a rare thing to see a man fetching water, but a woman can walk upwards of 10k each day with heavy loads on their heads.  All of this is done with grace – a look of ease, even as they carry a newborn baby on their back.

Without education or money to change their situations, the only escape for many is taking a chance on Kayayo (traveling for work as porters in Kumasi or Accra). Women who return to the village from working in the south walk taller; they come back in new clothes, lobes sparking with shiny earrings; they can afford the things they need to make life better; they don’t have to ask any man for coins – they have a better sense of independence and confidence.

But not all Kayayo stories are so successful. The mere facts of being a woman and a stranger to a large city can result in a completely different lifestyle than what they are used to in the village. Most of the girls head to Kumasi with the intention of making some quick cash and going home, but city life can catch them like a predator.  Vulnerable, they get trapped into prostitution, drugs, and theft; it isn’t until they arrive that they realize how difficult it is. Many girls sleep on the street and they are highly competitive – doing whatever it takes to make more money, more money! Young guys who stay in the area hustle and scam to make a buck, usually they take a liking to one of the girls. Offering security by providing a place to sleep (in his metal shanty hut) it isn’t hard sell to a girl who is used to the safety of her compound. He’ll begin to make more demands of her; using his shack as bait, the young girls fall into a trap they can’t get out of.

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When my friend returned from off-loading the sack of onions she was able to sit with me. I was worried, I had so many questions – I’d heard so many different stories about Kayayo, but I wanted to hear her story. Tagging along, her older brother helped with the translation; her particular job site was the most competitive – they had regular pay and could go home with seven, sometimes eleven, cedis per day. It was an area of Racecourse filled with cattle trucks, brimming with yams and onions. She told me that many women coming to work for the day couldn’t finish the job; that it’s only for the very strong. Women on the street aren’t strong enough to carry from the big produce trucks, she said, sometimes they can’t carry  at all – they beg; only posing as Kayayo. For women begging to carry personal luggage or empty a cargo truck near a store, the competition is very serious. They’re not guaranteed a single Ghana cedi a day; worse, they sabotage each other – hiding one another’s silver basins, they make it virtually impossible to carry loads.  

My friend’s job was to off-load bulk produce and carry it to vehicles transporting it to buyers (restaurants, chop bars, and market sellers). She was saving her money in a communal Susu box – every day she would take what was needed for food and the rest would be put into savings. Though the work was hard, her situation sounded ideal and I wanted to see where she was lived; I hoped she wasn’t secretly living on the street.

We walked through the makeshift ghetto and reached a very old (probably condemned) structure. Outside of the abandoned warehouse naked kids were running around; some women came in and out of the bathing area, others perched over TZ coal pots. We entered a long room lined with suitcases – clothes dried on crisscrossed lines; prayer mats were propped or spread out; empty bowls lay everywhere. As I walked in women began to shout my local name – they were from my community – with true joy they rushed forward and hugged me, offering me a spot on their prayer mats and calling their new friends to meet me. I was bombarded by greetings. Many from my village asked to call their husbands or parents, some hadn’t been in contact for months; my phone was passed around and my credits finished in no time.

The warehouse was simply a transplant of village life; women had divided themselves by language and took turn babysitting and cooking – they created their own community. As a custom of greeting, my friend came to bring me water; I sat with women hovering over me until the excitement died down. Soon my friend was able to get back to her story; she’d seen girls leave the warehouse to move in with boyfriends, thinking they had made it big. Those who didn’t make enough during the day would try to make money at night; this I took to mean prostitution. She promised me she didn’t plan to do that; her goal was to save enough money to sustain her once she returned to the village. She considered herself a divorced woman, only thinking for herself and her children; she missed them terribly.

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This took place about a year ago and my friend has since returned to Wa; she is no longer with her husband and is living a life independent of him.  She took the money she earned and is now an apprentice at her aunt’s seamstress shop. Though her experience turned out well, not everyone is so lucky. 

Education in HIV prevention is important, but efforts also need to be put into helping safeguard these women in large and dangerous cities; resources need to be invested in accommodating their transient status, instead of allowing them to be subjected to street life. Something as simple as open communication has the potential to go a long way in improving their lives; it’s only when they become isolated from their family and homes that they are truly in danger.

The issue with Kayayo is not that women run off to Kumasi and ending up in prostitution; it’s about women seeking independence through financial security.  In a society that makes them feel inferior, incapable of bettering themselves, this is often their only choice. These women are courageous, driven, strong, and intelligent – they know they’re going into a hard life, but they weigh the risks versus the opportunies if they stay. The work these women do is vital – a good portion of the economy is carried on their heads – and unless the financial and cultural situation in the northern regions changes drastically, Kayayo is inevitable. What needs to happen now is the investment in keeping them safe.

To run where no white lady has run before…

As they say in GYD, you can do practically anything. Take me for instance: I used to like to run alone; eventually, after relentless “WHITE PERSON!” cat-calls, I decided to let the kids run with me. After 4 miles and several villages, I was surprised to find that no waterhole spectators thought twice about a few 7 year olds tagging along. Not only did I have a group of runners who inspired me to run faster; I had a group of kids that saw exercising as fun.  Because training is so important (many Ghanaians suffer from diabetes), we often run for a couple of miles or do sprints on the soccer field. I bought some of the die-hard, everyday-runners new shoes, but most kids run barefoot – I make it a priority for them to run with me every day for at least two weeks before I consider handing out free shoes. I want them to have to work for it; the activity seems to keep younger boys out of trouble and, though the girls were shy at first, their numbers have been slowly increasing. I’ve found that I really enjoy it; we always share giant smiles at the end of our runs … plus, I feel like a celebrity with body guards – not a single person calls me “WHITE LADY!” without being scolded by the children: “White people have names.”

The Effect of Bribery and Corruption on the Youth of Ghana

 
GYD Scholarship winner Akorli Edem Wisdom and PCV Mike Sexton in Abor, Volta Region

The Effect of Bribery and Corruption on the Youth of Ghana

by Akorli Edem Wisdom

                Bribery and corruption are used interchangeably to mean the offering of money to a person so as to influence his or her decisions about their work. These acts are preventing the country from developing since our resources are going to people they were not intended for. This problem is negatively affecting the youth of Ghana.

                Bribery and corruption has made it difficult for students who pass their examinations to get to the schools of their choice since their places have been sold to people who have bribed the administrators. The students who were displaced by corruption would have performed better than the ones who bribed the administration and this will in turn degrade the quality of education at the schools that permit this activity.

                Parents of the students are also facing the issue of not being employed for certain positions even though they are qualified because employers are expecting them to offer a bribe before they hire them. This has made it very difficult for parents to pay school fees which may cause some students to involve themselves in certain bad practices such as having sex for money or stealing in order to pay their fees.

                As the above forms of corruption become more frequent students are starting to practice bribery and corruption themselves. Some students will bribe their teachers in order to gain promotion to the next class. This happens when students do not perform well and are repeated for another academic year. Since they don’t want to be mocked by their colleagues they bribe their teachers or directors to promote them to the next class.

                To solve the problem of bribery and corruption, the following mechanisms could be put in place. As a first measure, poor parents could be vocationalised. For example, they could be employed to work on state farms in order to get money to pay the fees of their children. They can equally be given loans which accrue less interest to enable them to profitably engage in petty trading. Through this trading, they can pay the fees of their children and also pay off the loan without being overwhelmed by the interest.

                The government could form a committee that will arrest and jail corrupt people. This committee should have a common hotline number that will be known by everybody in the nation so that whenever the witness or are victimized by a case of bribery they can call the hotline to quickly respond.

                Lastly, there could be a law governing occupations in the country. For instance, there should be a law which states that any qualified person should be employed and this person will be checked by a particular committee to make sure he or she has all the qualifications. This will reduce the number of employers taking bribes to hire personnel.

                It is hoped that if the above actions are taken seriously, the rampant rate at which bribery and corruption occur will reduce and prevent the negative impact it is having on the youth of Ghana.

Voodoo Thoughts

Many Volunteers in Ghana are faced with challenges understanding and dealing with traditional beliefs.  Theses are some thoughts on the subject from one anonymous volunteer.

It seemed so ridiculous the first time that I heard it suggested…a voodoo curse on my PCV Supervisor!

And indeed, based on what I heard, I laughed.

What I first heard was that a few years ago , my Supervisor had been ‘running’ a commercial establishment for an American NGO in a rural Volta Region community and that therefore ’working’ for the yevu, the white man, he had to be making lots of money. Of course, he wasn’t, but that was ignored.

Ghanaian rural communities, if you haven’t figured it out yet, are riddled with jealousies…between families, among families, insiders versus outsiders.

And so there were those who resented my friend’s good fortune in working for the man and plotted to get him fired  from his post and claim the rumored rewards all  for themselves. And so they went to the local voodoo man and paid him to put a curse on my friend. 

I don’t know enough to be able to figure out whether that curse worked but my friend eventually left the community and the operation went belly up and the American NGO’s support was terminated.

My friend moved to another community in the same region but quite distant and the NGO started another operation, bigger than and better funded than the previous.

And the operation has been highly successful, hopefully aided by the assigned PCV (me) for eighteen months.

But according to what I’ve been recently been told, the original voodoo casters eventually found out about this new operation…much bigger than before...and repeated their original voodoo curse...perhaps joined by local people in our  community. 

And that is when I became aware of all of this. 

My friend, my supervisor, with whom I was pretty much in daily contact, got ‘sick’.

Malaria?  Nope!

It took a while and I seemed to run into quite a few brick walls before I got any understanding.

My friend looked awful and clearly felt awful….a mere shadow of himself.

Please, M, tell me what is wrong..it’s probably my fault.  Is it malaria/ Is it a stomach problem?

Reluctantly, eventually..he whispered..it’s spiritual.

Emmmm…what does that mean? He’s lost his faith? 

So he told me….he feels balls of fire inside..in his arms, in his stomach, in his legs. Like hot coals in his body and he feels fevered.

He went to the hospital in a nearby town and they kept him for few days but could find no cause, He looked terrible…weak, frightened really and he told me that his family were very scared too.

He told me about the original curse and how the people from the first place had found out where he was and that this time the yevu NGO had built a bigger and more expensive XXXXX and that therefore there was more yevu  money at stake...and indeed they may have joined forces with people in his new community to reinforce the curse.

‘M…this is crazy…surely you don’t believe this nonsense.’

But he did and he does.

He would seek cleansing with his minister…and with a vial of mysterious liquid, to drink? to rub on?

It goes in and out…some days he’s good and some days he looks like death warmed up.

I talked with some local friends, including one who has been educated and taught in the US college system.

‘Do you believe in voodoo and that someone could put a curse on M?’

“Well, No, but…’

‘But what?’

It doesn’t matter what I think it is what M thinks that is important.’

‘…and if M believes that there is a curse on him...........’

‘A curse can only operate if the person who is cursed believes it,’ my elder friend told me.

‘I’ve learned not to believe in them but I would never question anyone else’s belief in them,’ he said.

I asked him whether there was a voodoo man here in our area.  ‘No…maybe, don’t ask..’ 

And that’s what is scary…my supervisor/friend is not dumb, he is educated and a head teacher at a local school but he believes in this curse and so do his family and he is very frightened.

How little we know...how different our cultures.

I can still laugh and say impossible, absolute nonsense, but if he believes it then it is possible and not nonsense! And so I must worry for my friend’s mental and physical health.