GYD in your region!

Hello all! Check out the GYD-related projects that PCVs in different regions are taking part in this month! And remember to submit any of your own stories/pictures/articles to your GYD rep the last week of every month.

Greater Accra
Submitted by Lindsey Hanson

Junior High School students at State School for the Deaf are currently learning Taekwondo. This form of MartialArts is a great way to exercise and have fun; students practice twice a week during their physical education period. They are learning kicks, punches, and karate chops with hand to hand combat. Students are also able to use weapons to defend themselves against predators.

Taekwondo is a great form of self defense. It is especially important for female students to learn about how to escape in case someone is trying to attack them. The female students have learned how to escape from one, two, and three attackers. This training will help them if there is ever a real life event.

Northern
Submitted by Lizzy Lyons

Here in the Northern Region the men complain that to find a wife they must travel to Accra or Kumasi, because that is where all the Dagomba women are. I laughed when I heard this, but as I looked around the village I find that the statement is less humorous and more truth. The women leave. All around me are stories of women who traveled to the south. The young mother across the street left at the beginning of dry season, she left behind her small two year old daughter and her husband. Next to her a small girl dropped out of school and left to Kayayo. My next door neighbors have a young son nicknamed “accra boy” because he was born while his mother was at Kayayo. Here, in my village, almost every woman travels to the south at some point in her life… its not a matter of “if” but “when”.

Will she travel when she is young? Dropping out of school, or maybe never having gone to school, and going south to earn small money for their family to buy fertilizers, foods, and clothes. Will she travel to earn money toward buying her bowls for marriage? Some may decide to travel to earn their school fees during JHS, and if she makes it to JHS 3, she will join her whole class as they all travel to earn their SHS fees, which are very difficult for families in my village to afford—so the children must travel to work and earn moneys to pay for their fees. Others girls travel to the South because it has become a rite of passage and they follow their mothers before them; they go with their friends; and they may go  in search of the freedom and adventure away from the normal daily life in the village.

Some women wait. They travel with their new babies, or they leave young babies and whole families at home, and travel to the southern cities to earn money to pay their childrens’ school fees. Or to earn the money they need to buy ingredients to feed their families—as women in the north are required to pay for all milling the corn into flour and ingredients like tomatoes, onions, okra, salt, and  Maggie —all the costs associated with feeding their families. In the Northern Dagomba tradition it is only the mans’ job to provide the corn, the women must provide the rest, but have little or no way of earning the money to do so, unless they travel. To Kayayo is seen by many as one of the only ways a woman can  earn her own money,  unless her father or husband gives land or money  to her..

And while there are many economic pressures to motivate women to migrate both seasonally and for short and long times… some also leave to escape more difficult reasons—domestic violence or child abuse in their homes; difficulties with their husband’s other wives; they may be a modern slave as some young girls are trapped in “slavish” conditions due to family abuse of the “small girl” tradition; and the break-down of the family due to divorce or death.

These girls face many different threats to their health and safety when they reach their destination cities. They pay for their housing and may find themselves living in dirty, overcrowded and hazardous places. Housing in the city is more trash and sewage filled, with high exposure to diarreahal infections and malaria. Life is challenging in the city for young women who have never lived without the support of family in the village. They face the risk of theft, assault, and rape. And they often find boyfriends who “help” with their housing or give them small money for food—a sexual exchange—which exposes them to HIV and STI infections and unplanned pregnancies.

What is Peace Corps Role and GYD doing:
The Northern Region, in the beginning of July, had a one week training with PCVs and community partners, which also included a day of networking with NGOs working on Kayayo programs in Accra, Kumasi, Tamale, and Bolgatanga. We came up with lots of information, lists, and projects—to see more information on Kayayo see the information which is located at each Sub Office’s GYD folders, the partner agencies information is also located there and is digital on the computers at Sub Offices, information is also available from our NEW GYD “Kayayo” COMMITTEE LEADERS: Megan and Rachel.

There is new funding available from the Gender Challenge Fund, which is for projects focusing on Kayayo, Income Generating Activities to reduce the pressures on girls and women to migrate to cities, and programming with focus on reduction of gender based violence. Talk to Omane about this if you are interested.

Also, a great project which focused on this issue of Kayayo occurred during the Peace Corps’ National STARS Conference last month—a Street Children’s Day March. It involved 15+ volunteers, a group of our STARS students, and partner NGOs in Kumasi… along with hundreds of young Kayayo girls and boys. The march went through the main areas of the downtown Kumasi and involved signs, drumming and horns, and Tess on a megaphone! Fun was had by all, as well as an opportunity to educate the community on the rights of children and the rights of women workers to respect.

Here are a couple more pictures of the march:

Brong Ahafo

Submitted by Caitlin McGuire

Many students learn better through hands on activities. Due to a lack of vocabulary, deaf students can understand concepts easier through demonstrations and practical experiences. The goal of the school farm is to provide practical work for students that will directly correlate to theory classes given at the junior high school level.

All term the students have been hard at work. They have successfully created a nursery in which they germinated cabbage. The students cleared the land and prepared beds for their crops. The students have been watering and weeding the baby carrots and onions. We also planted okra and groundnuts, in which we continue to battle away stubborn grasshoppers. Recently the students transferred the cabbage from the nursery, which with the help of mulch is off to a great start. In the future we hope to invite agricultural volunteers to give presentations of organic fertilizers and natural pesticides.

This holiday break from school I have hired four students to care for the farm. One boy in particular has been abandoned by his parents, so he is forced to reside at the school every vacation. A deaf couple at the school are now providing for him. With some extra funding from my PCPP grant I will be able to pay him for his farm work, so that he can have money to buy school supplies for next term. He will be working alongside two deaf girls and another boy who live in town.

I have seen the students slowly start to realize the value in growing your own crops. There cooperation amongst one another is inspirational. I have this image ingrained in my head of a group of junior high school girls carrying a huge pile of mulch with raking sticks going in all different directions. After much struggle they were able to move the great heap as they all collapsed laughing together victoriously.

Eastern
Submitted by Kyndra Eide

Since I have arrived in Ghana to start my service as an agriculture volunteer I have wanted to start a school garden. After speaking with several PCVs who have participated in this project, I felt that it would be a great way to integrate and get to know my local school, despite what might go wrong; many volunteers felt it to be a waste of time and that the students don't usually take responsibility, causing it to fade away. About 6 months into my service I decided to go for it, so I began working with the JSS science students in my community.

I arrived at the primary/JSS school to choruses of "blafono" and “obruni” which alerted the entire school that a white lady had come. Most students kept their distance but a brave few came up to touch my arm or say “good morning". One JSS girl even offered to take my bag and lead me to the staff room to great the headmaster. After a short conversation about why I am in town and what I would like to do at the school, I was whisked away by the only science teacher to watch as she delivered the days lesson to the Form 2 students (equivalent to 7th grade). She started by reviewing the biology of plants and then let them work together to draw the anatomy of a flower. This was the first time I got to walk around and talk to the students, ask them questions and answer some of theirs.

As we walked back to the staff room after class I asked more seriously if they would like to start a school garden. The teacher was so grateful that I wanted to help that she went straight to the headmaster and asked for land at the back of the school to start on. Only two weeks later, a once garbage dump for the school had been turned into a cleared dirt area just waiting to become a garden. One bed had already been raised as an example for the students to make their own. As classes began for the day a stream of Form 3 (8th grade) students came out to the garden to start their work. All we had was a hoe, a couple of cutlasses, and some sticks, but I guess that’s all you really need because an hour later two more beds were raised. This was a wonderful thing to watch happen as you could see the natural leaders take command of the situation. These were different leaders from in the classroom, so seeing the different types of learners getting a chance to shine was great.

There was one boy that really got into it. He was working up a sweat as his fellow students just looked on. I asked the other kids to follow suit and start working but after 5 seconds of acting like they were participating they went back to watching. There was, however, a group of about 5 girls that made a game of picking up the trash that was in the soil. They would all pick trash up with the sticks and toss it into a bucket, when they made it they jumped and celebrated. The whole time I was astonished that none of them got a bit dirty, which is even more impressive when you consider their pressed white uniforms!

The seed was sown a week later after all the beds had been completed. Lettuce, hot peppers, sweet peppers, onion, watermelon, cucumber, carrot, and tomato were all planted. Although it was getting to be the end of the term and the end of the growing season, I was promised that the students that live nearby and those who attend summer classes would take care of the garden. I have returned to the garden many times and each time I am impressed once again at what a little push in the right direction and some seeds can do.