Thank you for having me 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 tree covered with bats! :)

Volta region. Man making a fence from the leaves.
Fish and peppers drying in the sun.

Faces of Volta.
Children getting ready for the "between the villages" football match.

Beginning of 2021 and the schools are reopening

According to the government decision, in January, the schools were reopening. That was such exciting news! I was looking forward to spend more time in the centres, meet the beneficiaries and learn how the centres work when at full operational capacity. To return to schools after almost a year of break, was a challenge at the beginning for everyone, the staff, the teachers and the children themselves. As initially planned, soon we started to implement the program for the beneficiaries. We worked four groups in parallel.

View on the Ashaiman, from the top floor of the FCP, First Contact Point. From the January onwards, 11 children attending pre-school, and approximately 30 school-children schools, were visiting the centres on daily basis. 

Especially for the International Day of Street Children, awareness promoting activities were carried out by the children and staff on the streets of Ashaiman. It created curiosity and started dialogs with people interested to know more about the topics and the organisation.

Work progress and results

Based on the program a book was published with the guidelines and session instructions, illustrating the work results. I am very proud to be able to share it with you here. 

Training and capacity building workshops for staff focused on self-regulation, sexual violence, child psychology development, trauma, reactions to traumatic events and emotional resilience were imparted as well.

Centred on the communicated needs and the assessment, a very thorough registration, screening, monitoring and evaluation tools were developed. These are to serve as sustainable instruments to monitor reintegration, socioemotional and health aspects, as well as academic progress of the children long-term.

Here you can see some of the works from the workshops. The workshops were focused on the creative arts therapy methods approach and aimed at working with empowerment, anxiety reduction, increase in self-confidence and self-esteem.

During the deployment we also worked on the visibility of the EUAV project. With the great team of seamstresses lead by Doris, small backpacks were produced. Each child received a bag as a thank you for participating in the program.

The time in Ghana has passed so quickly…

I feel six months, is way too short, to get to know and understand a country and its people. I feel grateful to Ghana for the time, for the kindness and friendship of the people I met, for our work successes, for the challenges and for the adventures.

Of course, as anywhere the places are also made by people. I was very fortunate to have fantastic people around me, to have great mentors, a chance to interact with other volunteers working in the North, and spend some great time with the colleagues from Estonia during their monitoring visit in Ghana.  

I found Ghanaians to be very strong and resilient, welcoming and warm-hearted. Thank you for the opportunity to be a European Union Aid Volunteer in Ghana, both to my sending and hosting organizations, Mondo in Estonia, and in Ghana to Kongo Community Centre Association and Rays of Hope Centre. Thank you for having me Ghana and I hope to visit again. Mpoya, medaase, akpe. Dziękuję 😊.  

FCP team. From the left, TT, the integration field officer, Emma (visiting from Ayikuma, the male caregiver), Richmond, the financial and administrative officer, Jocelyn, the cook, Benedicta and next to her Fouseni, the pre-school teachers, and at the front to the right, Barbara Boadi, the director of the Rays of Hope Centre.

On the left: the WEM team. Emma, the caregiver, Sandra, the cook, Judith, the caregiver, and Sister Tonia, the educational officer. 
To the right: Dr. Kingsley Mort and myself, at the airport of Accra.