Mondo's volunteers in Ghana

Around Christmas time and New Year 2020/21  Over the the Christmas I had a few days off to explore Ghana and I went to visit Ashanti region and around. You might think that Ghana is all the same, all around the country. Yet it is so varied. The scenery, the people, some of the customs, the food, the weather… and the stories. Kumasi is the biggest city of the Ashanti region, with very rich history and tradition, many festivals, culture, a big market where one could spend many hours, and much more.  After a few days, I went over to the Volta region to spend the last days of 2020 by the sea side before returning to Ashaiman. The village of Dzita was very peaceful and serene with many small fishermen huts.  Some things are better described in pictures, so let me comment below. The  Akwasidae  Festival is celebrated by Ashanti people and chiefs of Ashanti. Fascinating trees. From left to right: the tree of red flowers, the tree growing pumpkin, the loud screeching ...

  3 months? Are you serious? Where has my time gone? How did it happen that is already March if we arrived in town yesterday? Still really hard to believe that our time here is finishing and the project is ending. And YES we have to leave , YES, we have to say bye to Victor, to the seamstresses, to John... I have never thought it was going to be that difficult.   Kongo market square and KoCDA office (in blue) Victor, resting at shea butter house    John and I at shea butter house And while I try to believe, things are happening and life goes on. During the months of February and March my work was focused on 4 main aspects: -           Giving Sexual Education Sessions to Junior High School students -           Production and distribution of reusable sanitary pads -           Performing health assessments to new sponsored...

Three months has passed so fast.   So, what we did with my beautiful fellow volunteer Marina - because of period stigma we had an idea to train girls in Junior High Schools and produce reusable sanitary pads to them. We trained almost 300 students! In our project were included local seamstresses, teachers from schools, students, their parents. A lot of people at the end.  In hospital I was working actually everywhere, in ER with local nurses, doctors assistants, but mainly with young midwives Emanuela and Gladis. They were amazing. In this clinic, Ayamfoya Memorial Clinic, midwives are so independent, they do everything. What was interesting as a family planning method, that most common method is injectable one - it's given as an injection every three months. A lot of girls choose this. But the problem is, a lot of girls are already pregnant when they come for check up, and they haven't done pregnancy test yet. So all patients who come to family planning check-up they need to ...