The Birth of Empower Playgrounds, Ghana

Creating the Documentary!

2009-02-12T21:43:00.000-08:00

My November trip was to take the BYU film crew to make the documentary. It was a lot of fun. We installed a merry-go-round at the rural school of Katapor, and visited the four other rural public schools (leaving Essam out of the picture because of how unpredictably rainy it was and how Essam was three hours away).

The film crew was delightful, and apart from a few small things (the focus child being too shy to talk to the camera, the van rental ending up being more expensive than budgeted for, and typical time issues), things went really well! We spent most of our time in the rural villages, and one day at the shop. We also took them to Cape Coast to do El Mina and see the canopy walk.

So... the documentary seemed to be successful!

It is supposed to air mid-March, 2009 on BYU TV. Stay tuned!

Volta Region

2009-02-12T21:24:00.000-08:00

The Volta region is beautiful! I went there for the first time during my November trip. The main attractions were a lot of Diana monkeys (WAY cuter than the monkeys in Botswana), and a hike through the jungle to a beautiful waterfall. Ahhh.... I fed bananas to the monkeys, too! They ate it right out of my hand.

There's not much more I can say than it was beautiful to get out of Accra and into nature.

Oh, there was a lady selling rice and chicken out of her house near the waterfall. When I asked how much it was, of course she told me it was three times the cost of what it is for Ghanaians. I went to hang out with the van driver, who was also eating. He informed me I was overcharged and demanded of the woman that she give me the meal for the same price. Then I played with a bunch of village boys. They started out picking on me, trying to pull my hair and touch me and make fun. So I pulled a Jackie Chan on them and they thought it was hilarious. They didn't speak English at all, so we interacted through sparring. Then I gave them all a few cents. I think they ended up liking me, and somewhat confused.

Grandpa had fallen behind, as Matthew and I had gotten back from the waterfall much faster than the rest of the group, so I purchased a flashlight since it had gotten completely dark since we had returned. Matthew ran back to rescue them.

It was a good day. :-)

A Day at the Beach

2009-02-12T21:16:00.001-08:00

The film crew wanted some entertainment/scenic ocean scenes to film, so Solomon took us all to a public beach near Accra. This was nothing like Kokorobite or Busewa. This was an Accra beach with a crowded village near the shore.

We got out and the smell was overpowering. There was garbage and human waste everywhere. There was a trench filled with brownish-black water, but fortunately there was a log going across it. We walked across the log. Then some men gathered around us and bullied us to give them money since we had walked across the log. There were nine or ten of them. White faces certainly attract a lot of attention in a place like that. Our cameraman decided not film the water there because of how the villagers were acting.

We went to another nearby beach hoping to not be bullied this time. The cameraman, Josephine (my Ghanaian friend), and myself were the only ones that got out of the van because of the mixed strong smell between garbage, waste, and fish. There were some fishermen preparing their nets and canoes who were friendly and let us talk to them (one, of course, proposed to me). They were very friendly. There was a pipe from a factory running straight into the ocean, gushing out large quantities of black oil. There was a little boy doing handstands next to pipe.

All in all, not my favorite experience. It left me wondering what can be done to clean up these Accra beaches. Ghana could really be a great place for tourists if the beaches were cleaner (though other beaches further away from Accra are absolutely gorgeous).

The Worrrrrrld Mahp!

2009-01-29T17:45:00.001-08:00

I traveled back to Ghana in November with a huge world map rolled up in a plastic tube sticking several feet out of the top of my backpack.

Matthew Colling (who was at the time performing a social impact analysis) and I went to the rural school of Koni Kablu, where one of the merry-go-rounds is. We brought the map to give to the school, and it was the first time they had ever seen one!

Only one of the three teachers had come to the school that day. We rolled out the map in front of about 40 wide-eyed kids, and invited the teacher to help us teach. However, we soon became aware that the teacher didn't know where Ghana, Africa, or the US was. He told us to continue with teaching.

We take so much for granted! The kids didn't know the difference between a country and a continent. They didn't know Ghana was part of Africa. They knew that they lived in Ghana and that they lived in Africa, but having never seen a representation of it, they didn't know how Ghana fit into Africa. Since most of them have never left their village, there was no understanding of the size of Ghana, or Africa, or the world.

We showed them where Ghana was, and then Africa, circling it with our fingers. Then we had them circle it with their fingers. We showed them where we came from in the US. They thought we were from Ghana at first. They caught on quickly to locating those places.

We soon realized they didn't know that the colors represented different countries while the blue represented the ocean. Then, we discovered that they didn't know what the ocean WAS! They had never seen pictures, and they lived a dry, savanna area with no lakes.

My lesson to them about oceans went something like this:

Me: The ocean is made of water. What is the ocean made of?
Kids: Water.
Me: The ocean is made of water. The land is made of dirt. Yes or no... the ocean is made of dirt.
Kids: Yes.
Me: No. The land made of dirt. The ocean is made of water. Yes or no... the ocean is made of water?
Kids: Yes.
Me: Yes or no. The ocean is made of dirt.
Kids: Yes.

I think English was the main barrier to our lesson. So instead I wrote out on the chalkboard "Ocean" with "Water" and "Blue" and "Fish" under it. Then I wrote "Land" with "Dirt" and "Grass" and "Cows" under it.

We went through a series of questions like: Do fish live in the ocean? Yes. Do cows live in the ocean? Yes. Basically the answer to everything was yes. Eventually, we got to the point that they understood what was associated with ocean and what was associated with water.

Now it was time to associate it with the map. I said "the BLUE parts are the ocean." What part is the ocean? Then it seemed they didn't understand what the word blue meant. Matthew and I pointed to different things that were blue, and the kids caught on fast. Then we pointed to different blue things, asking, "what color is this book?" "Blue!" "What color is his shirt?" "Blue!"

Then we said, "What color is the sky?"

"White!" They all yelled in union. I looked out the hole in the plaster that was the window. They were right. The sky was bright white.

Then we had the kids come forward one at a time to point to different parts of the ocean. The first pointed somewhere in the Pacific. The next pointed to somewhere in the Indian. The third pointed to DR Congo. Which was, in fact, a different shade of blue.

Overall, I think the English lesson disguised as a geography lesson turned out fairly well. I learned a lot of things... next time I will bring photos of fish, the ocean, grass, different parts of Africa, and different parts of other countries including the US. When I was their age, I loved maps, and dreaming about going to Africa and traveling to other exotic places. I wanted to travel the world. I really want the kids to know about interesting things that exist in the world that they haven't seen, like snow and castles and kangaroos. Just like I dreamed about giraffes and elephants and the Australian outback.

Family Home Evening and Table Climbing

2008-10-05T19:12:00.001-07:00

My host mother, Lydia, likes to take charge of Family Home Evening lessons. One FHE, she asked us all what we heard in church.

My little sister Adwoa talked a bit about Sunday School. Lydia said, "Nice try." Then Essie said what she heard in sacrament. Lydia said, "Nice try." I didn’t want a 'nice try', so I gave a slightly lengthy monologue and seemed to pass the test.

When it was Kweku’s turn, he said: ‘You want to know one thing I heard at church? One thing I heard at church was: ‘Amen.’”

It is safe to say Lydia was less than amused and rephrased the question to ‘what did you learn at church?’

We finally got her to crack a smile when Essie said she learned that Sister so-and-so had a baby.

JJ had an interesting activity in store for FHE. It is called ‘table climbing’ but it turned out to be more like ‘rolling off the table onto the floor with a giant thump.’ If anyone wants to try it, I will tell you how. Lay on the table. Roll off without falling on the floor. Grab whatever you can with whatever limb you can. Get from one side of the table to the other (under the table) without touching the floor. Roll yourself back up onto the opposite side of the table from where you started. More succinctly, go down one side of the table and come up the other without touching the ground.

I made it the first time because luckily there was a bar on the bottom of the table. When I tried it without using the bar, I fell on the floor the first time. I tried again and was able to briefly suspend myself in the air under the table, and it took a battle with gravity to roll myself back up onto the table.

JJ didn’t seem to have a problem with it. Rock climbers are so aggravating sometimes.

Essie and Adwoa both dropped flat onto the ground. I wanted to see Lydia try, but didn’t want to push my luck in volunteering her.

Another time, JJ and I decided we wanted to play the newlywed game, Kweku against Lydia. It was so funny hearing their perspectives. Kweku saw her one night in the dark and offered her a ride. He said it was because he felt sorry for her. She said it is because he fell in love with her the second he saw her. She did not like his car and told her friends at work about it. They said she could do better. She left the house 15 minutes before he was supposed to pick her up on her first date with him. On purpose of course. He persisted in continuing to visit her at work.

Though they couldn't agree on all the details, Kweku summed it all up with the last statement, "It was the dimple that did the trick."

First visit to Katapor and Nii Otto Kwame Schools

2008-10-05T19:02:00.000-07:00

Let's rewind to the initial school visits.

The first day, I woke up at 3am so we could be on the road by 4am so we could meet the MPA students by 5am so we could get to the village by 8am. We usually leave the house around 6-6:30am so this was quite a disturbance. Our goal was to visit 18 schools within four days in three groups, and do an initial data collected, eventually to select five. We split the MPAs into three groups and Solomon, JJ, and I each went with a different group. I went to two villages/schools.

The first was Katapor. I focused on the school, visiting the classrooms and interviewing teachers and students, as well as the headmaster. There were 212 students (88 in the nursery). They have two breaks during the day and all break at the same time. Not all kids can go because some cannot afford the uniform and books cost. By Ghanaian law, they cannot work in the market either, so some kids are just running around. There are books and the kids get homework, but many do not have any light at home. Some may have one kerosene lamp for a family of nine. The school itself was fairly light because there were a lot of windows, but I wonder what would happen in a storm (during these three months it sometimes rains nearly every day). There is no glass so the blinds would have to be closed. There are also no science labs at that school, so it would be extremely beneficial to have one using the merry-go-round and zip-line.

The second school was Nii Otto Kwame. It was much darker. It was made of thick cinder block and did not have any windows, just some decorative designs with holes. They did have a science lab, or at least a box with some test tubes and cylinders they measure water in. They have a mini-microscope as well. I focused more on interviewing village members this time. Many (maybe half) have no light. The rest have maybe one lantern for the whole family. There were, however, some civil unity problems in this village. There is some argument over who should be the chief. Traditionally, it was decided that the first family to settle the area are the royals and that is where the chief comes from. We met with the chief and he told us they had been on national news for some fighting. This school was very crowded with over 400 students. It was not big enough so they had to rotate classrooms with one class meeting under a tree. Mind you, these are all government schools, as we are working with the Ministry of Education.

Many women in the area are stone crackers. I asked if they could show me so the four women took me up a hill and showed me the quarry and how they gather big rocks and carry them out on their head and hit it with this primitive looking hammer to break it down. I asked if I could do it, so I sat on that hill and cracked stones with the women. One woman tried to also put the bowl of large rocks on my head but the others began to scream, so I pretended to hold a bowl on my head and walk swerving back and forth and they all laughed and laughed. I made some great friends in that village. I am not sure this school is a good candidate though. There are too many students to regulate lantern distribution, and the kids did not seem as organized or obedient as Katapor. The civil unrest also makes me wonder what would happen if we suddenly dropped a playground in their area.

The funny thing about visiting these villages it that nobody except the headmasters were supposed to know we were coming or why we were there. However, hundreds of village members sat in the middle of the schoolyard for three hours waiting for us at both schools. The chiefs were sitting front and center in their traditional garb. They had a table with a white tablecloth and flowers for us to sit in front of them. They expected a speech.

Luckily, Jeff (MPA study abroad professor) and Catherine (professor and MPA administrator) were able to make one for us. Even when the ministry told the people to go away, they still waited! The kids at the second school had planned a song, a few educational speeches, and a skit in which each child dressed in a traditional tribal uniform and told us about the culture. Then they brought out a Ghanaian flag to tell us which each color represented. The kids kept calling us their "honored guest from the United States." We were also able to play some games with the kids.

The village members, apart from 'not knowing we were coming', were not supposed to know why we were there. Once Jeff asked what the greatest need in the community was and a man said, "we need a merry-go-round!"

Orphanages

2008-10-05T18:50:00.000-07:00

During the four days the MPA study abroad students worked with us, we went with them to the Osu orphanage. It was a very different experience than going to the schools. The kids were completely starved for both attention and touch. I loved picking them up and giving them stickers, and I loved swinging on the swings with them and going down the slides. Most couldn't speak English so it was hard to communicate with them.

There was a fun boy who spoke English who came right up to me and demanded, "Pick me up!" I said, "Why, can't you walk?" He exclaimed, "Yes!" and continued to look at me. I picked him up and spun him around and he laughed and laughed and I kept doing it until I thought we would both fall over. Then we would fall over, and then we'd do it again.

There was a group of older girls on the swings who liked to stroke my hair, too. They all wanted to take pictures with my camera and were surprisingly good at it. They also took a lot of pictures of dirt, but oh well. There was a cute little girl in a purple dress but she didn't respond to much and I thought she must have been through an ordeal.

JJ and I went with our new friends Vicki and Betsy to New Life Orphanage in Cape Coast. Once again, the kids were so warm and accepting and just wanted to be touched and held. I have a great respect for those who set up orphanages. The kids take care of other kids. I brought some balloons as well as stickers this time and the kids preferred to blow them up, let all the air out making the screeching sound, and then come to me and ask me to blow them up again. Every time I tried to give out a balloon, they would say, "do not tie it!" Those kids were so cute.

My No-Good-Horrible-Very-Bad Morning

2008-10-05T18:12:00.000-07:00

I was pretty excited Saturday morning because JJ and I were going to a beach party with the young single adults. I had only gotten four hours of sleep because the night before I was washing my clothes by hand in a bucket. I woke up at 5:30am, extremely groggy, and staggered into the cold shower. There was a ginormous (this word is Miriam-Webster approved as of last year) cockroach. I hit it with my shoe. It didn't die. I hit it again. After about four hits, it's life light went out and I felt a sudden surge of guilt for destroying the poor thing.

I lugged my murderous self into the shower, feeling absolutely horrible. Halfway through, the cold water dripping from the shower head completely stopped. I was used to the lights and water turning off spontaneously, and it's normally more of an adventure. This time, though, it was just too early for adventures.

My hair was completely lathered with shampoo, and there was nothing I could do but laugh briefly, and then become ferociously disgruntled and wonder why mornings even exist. I was left with two options: (1) wait and hope my water comes back on, or (2) humble myself to the dust and ask JJ if I can use his shower. I hated option number two.

So, I waited, shivering, teeth chattering, for about 15 minutes hoping against hope the water would come back on. When it didn’t turn back on, seeing no other possible option besides showing up to the activity with shampoo all over my head, I sent him a text message to warn him that I was coming over whether he liked it or not and that it was a ‘salty fish head’ morning (a phrase coined from our least favorite dinner experience). I put on some sopping wet clothes (they hadn’t dried yet from my washing the night before) and hiked to his house complete with lathery, wet hair glued around the top of my head like a devilish halo.

I think the first words out of my mouth when he opened the door were something along the lines of, “Laugh, and I’ll kill you.” He didn’t laugh (obviously, or he’d be dead now), but kindly let me in. Then, he calls me back, and I thought maybe he was going to tell me some trick to the shower, but no. He has the AUDACITY to HIDE his camera behind his back, then whip it out and snap a picture at six in the morning when I look like a drowned rat! That punk! The good news is I swore in my wrath I’d delete the photo if it was the last thing I did, but he accidentally deleted it himself! Haha! Don’t mess with drowned rat girl.

JJ, if you’re reading this, you know I like you. It WAS funny, looking back.

Because of this incident, I was running a bit late so we scrambled to find a taxi to the church where we were meeting our friends. I bought some koko off the street. It’s a spicy, liquid millet drink. The lady I bought it from appeared to be surprised a white lady was buying it, and asked what price I’d buy it for. When I told her I would take it for 20 pesewas, the price the three Ghanaians in front of me had purchased it for, she seemed insulted. She told me it would be one cedi. Normally I am a pushover like that, but this morning brought out the hidden feistiness. I told her it would be 20 pesewas or I'd find someone else to buy it from. I gave her one cedi and waited for my change. She wanted to capitalize on obruni and claimed she didn't have any change, even though I had just seen several people pay her with coins. JJ gave me some coins instead. I said 'thank you very much' through gritted teeth and recalled the moment last year when someone tried to charge a friend of mine 20 US dollars to use the public toilet.

I sat on the curbside and sucked my koko out of the plastic bag while we waited. I think I was successful in getting it all over my wet pants as well. We had arrived by the time we were supposed to leave the church, 7am, but they ended up picking us up around 10am. We sat on the curbside for three hours, both a little grumpy from lack of sleep. Ghana time. It was worth it though. The rest of the day was fabulous!

With God All Things Are Possible Beauty Saloon

2008-10-05T17:04:00.001-07:00

One of the things I love about Africa in general (but particularly Ghana) is looking at various shop names. The people are very religious and affiliate many shops with religious titles. For example: "God is Great Furniture Works," "Redeemer Tyres," etc. I love this because it shows the religious conviction of the people. While America is busy taking God out of the pledge, people in Ghana are recognizing him in their businesses.

My personal favorite was: "The Downfall of Man is Not the End of His Life Enterprise." 12 words. It was a bike repair shop.

Some of the names are not religious, but just kind of funny, like this one:

In case you can't read it, it's "Don't Mine Your Wife Chop Bar."

Another good one was the "Bar Be Que" shop.

Taxis and trotros are also filled with religious sayings. Some of them, again, are not as religious. For example, I was walking down the street and saw some men pushing a trotro that had broken down. The writing in the back windshield? "Never Give Up." Very appropriate.

Another appropriate incident was after my friends and I had finished being ripped off at the art market (totally our fault of course, being flimsy bargainers). The saying, "Never Trust Them."

How to Start an NGO in Ghana

2008-10-05T16:45:00.000-07:00

One of the main goals I had in going to Ghana was to make the organization official in Ghana. We already had our 501(c)3 but were not registered in Ghana at all. In case you were wondering what is involved in the process, I will tell you what I did this summer.

1. Find an auditor.

2. Go to the Register General's Office. Buy a form, make 4 copies, pay your registration fee, give a letter from your auditor. Wait several months, unless you have a connection, in which case, wait two weeks or so and get your certificate!

3. Go to the Social Welfare Office. Bring a slew of documents including (but not a comprehensive list) your registration certificate, articles of incorporation, the Social Welfare application form, 501(c)3 copy (if affiliated with US nonprofit), letter from an auditor, and a memorandum of understanding between your nonprofit and the government of Ghana. We were also asked to bring letters from the Ministry of Education. Wait another few weeks, pay your fee (why is it that nonprofits have to pay exorbitant fees to the government when they are in fact stepping in and saving the government money by doing things the government is failing to do?), and receive your Social Welfare Registration.

4. Once you have your Social Welfare registration, you are free to begin applying for tax exemptions. In Ghana, these are not given unless the organization is either education or health related. Solomon and I have had quite the headache trying to convince the government that this is an educational venture. However, since we are not directly importing books or other clearly educational goods, we have been fighting tooth and nail for our import duty exemptions. The Ministry of Finance tells us there is no way for us to prove the lights are going to children and not being sold. This step is by far the hardest because you have to apply through the Ministry of Finance, who then sends you to Customs and the VAT (value added tax) for consideration, who then sends it back for approval. We are still fighting for this one.

5. Hire yourself a country director. We were very lucky to have a very good candidate fall right in front of us. To do this, you need to register your country director officially with the organization, and go to the SSNIT (Social Security Office) to fill out another form. Careful when setting the employee's base salary... the organization is required to pay 12% to SSNIT and the employee 5%.

I probably missed a few steps, because this was an extremely long and drawn out process, but since it happened within the three months I was there even with all the other things we were doing, I'd say it's relatively easy in Ghana. It is not very hard to obtain the status, but it does take some waiting time.

Asaba: The Miracle Fruit

2008-10-05T16:05:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about Ghana (apart from the kids) is the delicious fresh fruit that grows so abundantly. There were mango and coconut trees in our front yard. The pineapple is absolutely divine. You will never find such a succulent pineapple in the US. There is also a small red berry the Ghanaians call asaba. After chewing this fruit, sour and bitter foods taste sweet for several hours. I ate a whole lemon as if it were an orange. And it tasted delicious! I must warn you, do not eat asaba if you are planning on eating anything else sweet. Drinking fruit juice and eating a grapefruit was very unpleasant afterwards because it was a little too sweet. Wikipedia explains that this works because a molecule asaba contains called miraculin binds to the tongue's taste buds and possibly distorts the sweetness receptors, making them react to bitter and sour flavors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_fruit

School Selection--Ga East

2008-10-05T15:59:00.000-07:00

Our final visit before deciding to select Adenkrebi in the Ga East district was interesting. It had formerly been my top choice, but now I’m not so sure. We took a few trotros to get there and finally took a taxi from the last city-like area to the school. The taxi driver was dressed in traditional garb and seemed more than happy to be paid to chill in the car while we did our school visit, with his long legs sticking out the open door and African music blaring from the car. Adenkrebi had been so organized and well-behaved last time I went. However, this time they were not informed we were coming and things were a bit different. The headmaster was out and we only saw three of the nine teachers at the school that day. The kids didn’t seem so disciplined, and sometimes the kids were not in the classroom. The location is gorgeous—it is at the top of a high hill overlooking other beautiful green hills. We gave the assistant headmaster the brochure and application and explained who we are. They were quite interested in applying.

Drama: One of the teachers invited us to come watch a ‘drama’ the kids are doing. We stood around in a circle with the kids for the warm-up. There was one student in the middle who called out and everyone else responded. It went something like this:
“Whazzup?”
“Wazzup?”
“I want you.”
“For what?”
Then everyone starts dancing like crazy.

I think they were entertained by JJ’s and my obruni dance. Then they put two big chairs in the middle of the classroom for JJ and I to sit on—I felt bad that they didn’t bring one for Solomon, but he insisted it was fine. So JJ and I watched from our thrones while everyone else stood. Then the kids did the real performance. It was about a village man who wouldn’t allow his girl child to go to school. The best part was near the end when some village people were reprimanding him that every child, even girl children, has the right to go to school. In the end, the kids playing the "community" ganged up on him, grabbed him by his trousers, picked him up, and carried him out the door to the police station while he yelled and kicked his legs. The boy playing the father was absolutely hilarious and looked completely indignant as he was hiked a foot into the air. It was awesome and definitely reflected the change in mindset and how hard the government and NGOs have been working to get girls in rural areas to school.

Adenkrebi Village: The most enlightening part of the trip was when we went into the community. The assistant headmaster took us around and I believe showed us a very biased view, taking us to all the better-off and more prominent people (who still lived in mud houses). We met the chief first and then one of the elders, the asarfo hene, (hene means chief and asarfo has something to do with youth). Many members of the community actually have tv sets and take their batteries into town to charge them. We found an interesting fact, that when electricity is introduced into a community, the birthrate goes down because people have something new to do at night (watch tv). Everyone in the community seemed to be a farmer, plus have another very small business. One man was a pensioner (retired teacher) who farmed to stay young, his wife ran a shop, and his daughter a hair saloon. We also sat under a tree talking to five men who spend time between Adenkrebi and Accra.

The people seemed to all have cell phones and tv sets, until we choose the last house instead of letting the headmaster take us.

I really liked the last house. It was a carpenter and his wife, and there was a little baby sleeping outside on a homemade rug in the dirt. The carpenter had made a scooter out of wood. They also grew a garden in the back with coconut and palm trees and cocoa yams (which they made a stew out of the leaves and root, and some pound the root for fufu.). The cocoa yam leaves were longer than my arm and fairly circular.

There were a lot of homemade bamboo fences in that area. People actually tied their goats up instead of letting them wander around. The general feel was that it wasn’t quite as open and friendly as some other villages. The other concern I had is that people would use the energy for cell phones or tv’s instead of education.

The interesting thing was that everyone in the school and the community remembered me immediately (JJ and Solomon had never been there before). And all of them said, 'I remember you, the one that asks a lot of questions.’ Apparently I am a loudmouth.

Adenkrebi kids: The kids at that school followed us around and made some interesting noises through narrowed lips, kind of like ‘ssssswhhheeessssweeeessss.’ We finally realized they were simply trying to imitate the way we talk. JJ and I were trying to teach the kids how to high-five. They all just wanted to touch our hands. So it turned out the kids were falling all over each other trying to touch my hands for a high-five, then I’d go down for a low-five and they would all kneel on the ground trying to touch my hands over each other. When I said, “Up high,” they didn’t understand, so the whole way back to the taxi there was a mass of primary school students following us saying ‘uh-buy, uh-buy.’ They sounded like the seagulls from Finding Nemo when they all say, ‘mine, mine, mine.’ Cute kids.

School Selection-Ga West

2008-08-19T09:34:00.001-07:00

Ga West schools: Katapor, Akatoshi, and Ayawasu.

Katapor: I didn’t see anything unique or especially desirable about the school, but I didn't see any red flags, either. There are 212 kids in the primary school and KG and they were not able to give us the numbers for JSS. A lot of NGOs work with them already, and they do have a bit of the “give me” entitlement attitude. They have two PTA meetings per term and it is hard to motivate people to attend. Often, kids stay after school to do homework and then go to quarry. Many don’t do their homework. They have a library built by an NGO but it was locked when we got there even though the kids were on break and could have used it.

Akatoshi: This school was nuts! We went on a Friday and apparently on Fridays in Ghana it’s often a free for all. But this one was especially out of control. There are perhaps 700 kids at this school and they were all running amuck with only one highly apathetic teacher sitting in the shade halfway supervising them. There were lots of kids climbing the trees, spinning around for fun until they fell on the ground, playing football, or even rolling in the dirt for fun. There was a library with a solar panel, which wasn’t being used at all.

Some kids were jumping from one tree to another--proof that playing on the merry-go-round would be the safest thing the kids would do all day.

We asked the kids how many of them had homework the night before, and even the whole week, and only a few had been assigned homework—all in math. So I suppose there is one teacher that assigns homework anyway.

On the upside, if we did install playground equipment, the kids would have something to do. It actually could be a good school to put playground equipment in to see what kind of problems have the potential to pop up in the future. We may as well let them all pop up now so we can learn how to deal with them early on. If we installed one, it would have to be the final, most robust version, and a good experiment in how long the equipment can hold up. We’ll see.

Ayawasu: This school was heartwarming because the kids immediately came running down the path and swarmed us (see photo) and grabbed my hands—I had about five on each hand and twenty following behind me and another ten in front of me all through the field towards the school.

However, it is only a primary school and it would be good to get some variety and have more equipment at schools that include JSS. It was funny because the kids had swarmed me so badly that Solomon and JJ had already reached the school and I was having a hard time keeping up because kids were clamped onto me everywhere. So I yelled, “Wait for me!” This was the only thing the kids heard coming from my mouth, so they all started chanting/mimicking in unison, “wheyfahme, wheyfahme” the whole way up. They must have said it at least fifty times in a row. It was the funniest thing! The kids really grow on you fast! As far as being a place where lights will be helpful, I kind of doubt it.

The final schools selected, both using the selection criteria and looking for variety are: Dedenya, Minya, Katapor, and Adenkrebi. The fifth is a toss-up between Koni Kablu and Akotoshi (gulp!)

School Selection-Dangme West

2008-08-18T10:42:00.000-07:00

Solomon, JJ, and I visited eighteen schools in three districts to look for the best merry-go-rounds candidates. The goal was to ultimately select five. After visiting the eighteen, we selected ten to give applications to. We have now selected the five schools which should each have an electricity producing merry-go-round by the end of September.

Dangme West District: Dedenya, Mueter, and Mompang Shai.

Dendenya: I liked this school a lot. There are 150-160 students and the school will go up through JSS2 next year. They have a library with a lock, so we could keep our power boxes safe. According to the teachers, the PTA is not very strong, but that is typical of the public schools we’ve visited. The headmaster was not there when we stopped by, which is also very typical. The school was built by SOS. The headmaster’s assistant was enthusiastic and said they want to be the first to receive a merry-go-round. The hills around the school are beautiful.

Muerter: This school has 150-200 students. I was most impressed with what *seems* to be the strength of their PTA, from what we’ve heard. Amati, the PTA chairman, seems very involved in the school activities. During our initial visit with the MPA interns, they had given us eggs and even washed the mud off my legs after we walked halfway through the village. The downside is the children live extremely far away, so they probably won’t come back in the evening to play on the merry-go-round. It is also very muddy when it rains, and half the time during the rainy season the kids can’t come to school because they would have to go across a pass with water up to their necks. Also, it is only a primary school so it wouldn’t benefit any JSS students.

There is a three year old rusty slide there.

We gave them some soccer balls.

Mompang Shai: This school is quite large—the teachers and headmaster didn’t know how many kids attend but I would guess around 400. One teacher said there are 50 students in her classroom alone. The PTA, according to the teachers, is very weak and their last meeting was last year. The teachers also said the retention rate is poor due to pregnancies and that there are more boys at school than girls. We found some children studying after school. One child was older but still in primary school and working hard to learn how to read. Some other small children were hanging around and I gave them some Superman stickers that said "Seize the challenge!" I don't think they understood the meaning of the words "seize" or "challenge."

Dangme West Schools: Koni Kablu and Minya.

I was very impressed with both of these schools, because, unlike every single other public school I’ve visited, both of these schools had ALL the kids in the classrooms with teachers teaching when we visited by surprise. The kids were quiet when they were supposed to be, well-behaved, disciplined, and respectful. I never saw that at other schools.

Koni Kablu was quiet and nice, and they took us into all the classrooms. The kids stood up and greeted us and clapped for us in unison. Very disciplined. We visited some people in the village to ask them about the school and community. This is a FABULOUS setting as far as marketing goes. It seems like more of a dry savannah than any other place we’ve visited and the village is very rural with thatched roofs.

Solomon and I visited with some of the villagers afterwards to ask about the school and their children.

It was fun.

I want to carry my children like this, but Florence, my Ghanaian friend, said I don't have the anatomy for it. No hips, too stick-like. :-(

If you can't tell, I really loved Koni Kablu.

The kids there really liked the stickers.

At Minya, the kids were so disciplined I had to wonder if the teachers beat them.

One of the classes meets under a tree because there are not enough classrooms for all the kids. There was a scale as part of the lesson that was going on, which was the first hands-on lab I’ve seen—and it was going on when they didn’t even know we were coming!

We peeked in a classroom and “gravitational force” was written on the chalkboard with some diagrams. Minya was extremely quiet, the headmaster even whispered outside the classrooms and didn’t want to bring us into the classes because it would disturb the teaching. The kids didn’t even gawk at us through the windows. They were incredibly focused. There were see-saws at Minya. Solomon and I, being professionals in the field of playgrounds, were of course obligated to try it out. It’s a tough job, I tell you.

Siamese Crocodiles

2008-08-02T09:17:00.000-07:00

One of the main lessons I have to push myself to remember is that no matter what role I play in any organization, my goals should align with that of the organization. This is especially true in the case of an NGO. EVERYONE should have the same goals. In a business, that goal is to increase profit. In a nonprofit, it is to provide social return on investment--meaning it better be doing some good in the world! When people decide to push their own agenda or do something for the glory they'll receive later, trouble happens! (Which brings up a whole different topic of what motivates people to be altruistic, which I won't address here). In any organization, it is easy for pride to slip in and for people to decide they want to do something their own way even when supposedly fighting for the same goal.

Empower Playgrounds should remember a certain Adinkra symbol that was initially a warning against tribalism and is called Funtunfenefu Denkyenfunefu, the double-headed crocodile. It means "the Siamese crocodiles share one stomach, but fight over food." It is also a symbol of unity.

Even more common is for someone to complain about the way things are being done and the person who is doing them that way without providing a viable alternative. We live in a world of complainers. Bosses complain about workers, workers complain about bosses. Likewise, in families parents complain about children and children about parents and spouses about each other. The goal for all is to have a happy family. I needed something to remind me not to complain if things are moving slower than I like, or someone has a different view about how pay should work, or if somebody spends a lot of money without informing me expecting to be reimbursed. I want to avoid both criticizing others and acting defensively when I am criticized. That is why I am stealing another Adinkra symbol to be my own personal logo.

It is called Bi Nka Bi (Bite Not Each Other) and is supposed to look like two fish biting each other.

It means: "You talk, I talk. You bite me, I bite you. All leads to big trouble for all."

http://www.welltempered.net/adinkra/index.htm

First Electricity Generating Zip-Line (that I know of)

2008-08-02T05:28:00.000-07:00

One of Empower Playground's summer projects was to build a zip-line in Ghana. A group of engineering and physics students at Brigham Young University had already designed and built one in Provo, Utah. However, building it in Ghana proves to be difficult. The design was changed entirely due to a difference in available materials. The thing had to be made entirely out of steel. We contemplated using a telephone pole or tree to mount it, but ultimately decided to use a truss and build a platform.
The business part of it became quite sticky because bargaining for metal in the market never yielded dependable prices. The safety features have not yet been added. The zip-line is about ten feet tall and has a forty foot ride. The design may be changed due to cost and difficulty of building.

Motivating the workers to build the zip-line was another issue entirely. A pay-per-unit system may be a viable alternative as far as encouraging productivity. The main challenge is finding a way to motivate and reward during the development stages of the zip-line and swing set, where quality and innovation should not be sacrificed for speed (which means pay-per-unit=disaster). Aligning employees with the company's vision is the best way to motivate, and should be easy with a nonprofit. Yet, money and free lunches seem to be a bigger motivation. Any ideas about how to get people working before the pay-per-unit system is launched?

I have to admit, going down that zip-line sure is FUN!!!

Welding in Ghana

2008-08-02T05:04:00.000-07:00

I was warned that Ghana wasn't the safest place to learn how to weld, but I figured if I can weld there I can weld anywhere. I simply went up to one of the workers and asked if he would teach me to weld and he said, "let's go." He gave me some sunglasses and I put on a long sleeve shirt. Despite my intention of welding just like the workers weld, I decided the sunglasses were probably not enough eye protection, so I insisted upon their homemade mask. I probably should have insisted on gloves as well. Welding in this fashion is not unique to the Empower Playgrounds shop in Ghana. In fact, as I drive down the road, I've often seen people on the side of the street welding in the exact same manner--no eye protection, gloves, or long sleeves.

This experience taught me that even though worker's compensation law (or at least awareness of them) and the danger of lawsuit seems to be very minimal in Ghana, safety rules for the workshop may be a good idea. However, the workers have been doing things this way for so long, and it seems the system has worked well for them. The question is: how to escape liability while not stepping on culture and habits that seem to work well for people? I really don't want anyone to go blind or suffer any third degree burns.

Computers 101 for Village Kids

2008-08-02T03:53:00.000-07:00

On the fourth visit to Essam, we repaired the merry-go-round and Solomon and I presented at the PTA meeting. During the repair phase, I didn’t feel particularly useful standing around while Seth, JJ, and Solomon tried to fix it, so I decided to give the children a crash course with the unknown and exciting machine commonly referred to as a ‘laptop.’ It turned out to be more of a pop-culture music class. School had ended, but a few were hanging around, so I marched into an empty classroom with my machine to see who would be interested in learning. I shouldn’t have been so conspicuous. Density is an interesting thing. ‘A few’ students scattered throughout the schoolyard turns into ‘a plethora’ of students when crowded around one desk. It was me and over 20 kids straining to see the screen. I had previously intended on having them type their names onto the screen and try moving the mouse, but with so many it was impossible. Instead I decided to show them how to change the desktop background from a farm scene to a beach. The general response to this was:
“IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Which I assume can only be interpreted as an expression of general amazement and wonder, akin to the outburst I experienced when I turned the computer on and it lit up. Next, I showed them some programs, but they only got excited about the music and pictures. I can’t imagine why. Text documents are startlingly exciting.

They told me I must play a song for them so after careful consideration I chose “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles. They loved it! They closed their eyes, swayed, and snapped to the beat. They begged me to write the lyrics down, which I did on a piece of my notebook paper. They especially liked the part that goes: “sun, sun, sun, here it comes” because it was easy to remember. We listened to it three or four more times while they sang along to the words on the paper. Imagine 20 children from the African jungle singing the Beatles… amazing. They liked “Stand By Me” as well. However, when I attempted to introduce them to Queen’s “We Are the Champions” and “We Will Rock You”, they stared at me like I was from outer space and asked for ‘the sun song’ again. Next I showed them pictures of their school and village I had put on my computer, as well as some videos of them playing on the merry-go-round.

To make the video presentation more educational, I decided to explain how it all works. I told them, “The sun has energy, which shines down and gives energy to the plants. The plants grow and make food, so the energy is in your food. When you eat the food, the energy goes into you. When you play on the merry-go-round, the energy goes from you into the battery, and is moved into a lamp that lights up so you can study at night.” One boy looked petrified and timidly asked, “Is that why I get sick? Because it is sucking the energy from my stomach?” I realized then that I have to be extremely careful about how I phrase things. In the end, some of them became more fascinated with my hair than the computer.

Night Visit to Essam, A Turning Point

2008-08-02T02:47:00.000-07:00

This was our third trip to Essam village and GS school, and the whole purpose was to see what happened during the dark evening and early morning hours PRE-LANTERN DISTRIBUTION. We therefore went into the community unannounced to see the typical activities. Monday we were scheduled to go to Essam at 8am from the office (so JJ and I left the Anno’s at 6:30am), but that didn’t happen. We waited on the engineers. Then we waited some more on the engineers. I went to buy some kasapa phone minutes across the street and found a mule moving down the road dragging a huge cart of garbage behind it. I asked Solomon what it was for and apparently that is their ‘garbage truck.’ I would have expected this in a rural area, but in the center of a middle-class part of Accra, it was a surprise. When the engineers returned, it was lunch time so we went to Osu, which took more time. Then there was no toolbox so we went back to McCarthy Hill to get one (which is about an hour away). Then, the engineers wanted some fufu, so we finally got on the road at about 3pm. As JJ would put it: “It’s Ghana time!” We ended up getting to Essem at 6pm instead of 11am as we had planned. We wanted to do a night visit so we could see how people use light in the evenings. The trip up through the jungle was gorgeous!

While the engineers were fixing the merry-go-round, I taught the kids duck-duck-goose and ring-around-the-rosy. It was interesting trying to communicate with the village kids because my English wasn’t understood very well. They loved it, but didn’t get it too well when I explained they should get into a circle. They would say, ‘duck, duck, JUICE!’ Also, they didn’t get the falling in ring-around-the-rosy the first four or five times, I think they thought I just kept going plop on the ground because I’m klutzy, but then they loved it.

The short version: We went into the villages after dark and saw many Golden Sunbeam children studying. I couldn’t believe it. I definitely had a renewed vision as well as a sense of urgency about what we are doing (supplemented by numerous experiences at the Anno home in which the electricity went off and I brushed my teeth by light of cell phone). The kids do study at night, sometimes in fairly large groups and with only one lantern. I was previously slightly dubious about the headmaster’s recommendation of sending the lanterns out in groups of kids so they can study together, but now I see that since the kids are already doing it in many cases, it will not be as difficult to implement as I had previously supposed. Following is the long version.

Community near school/Evening: Most people in the nearby community were using either bobos or kerosene lanterns because they were still selling things along the roadside. Many of the houses were completely dark, but others had lights hanging on the porch. The first children we ran into lived very near to the school and were sitting outside on a bench, using a small flashlight between the two of them. Their mother had another light and was using it to sew in the after-dark hours (another of our goals on this trip was to find people engaging in various economic activities after dark). Other family members were wandering around without lights, one cooking, and a few relaxing. The family used flashlights because kerosene was too expensive for them. They also had a lantern. They spend about 80 pesewas for four D size batteries for a lantern and purchased the lantern for 7 cedi (in Oda). Nearby, there was a movie theater, which was one small tv where many were gathered sitting on benches to watch. Two boys had a flashlight and were studying in the back corner during the movie.

Surrounding Villages/Evening: We wandered away from the community and further into the villages. We didn’t see any flashlights in those areas as far as I can remember, but we saw a lot of bobos and kerosene lanterns. The bobos were brighter than the lanterns because the lanterns were very dirty, but used a lot more fuel which becomes expensive to the people. We saw three children studying by bobo. We saw several children using kerosene lanterns while the parents sat in the dark. There were many adults outside or on the porch with a bobo nearby; most were not doing economic activities. We did see a woman braiding palm tree branches by kerosene lantern to make a rope to tie wood together. However, children seemed to be using light more than the adults. We found a group of five children all using one bobo. When we replaced both the bobos and the kerosene lanterns with one of EPI’s lanterns, it was much brighter. The kerosene lanterns simply don’t produce enough light and I’m sure the kid’s eyes are strained, and the bobos are too expensive and still not light enough. These particular children were reading about ‘exotic vegetables’ and there were pictures of carrots and other western vegetables.

I think the most touching scene we all witnessed that night was when we saw a large group of children (8 to 10 I think, but it was hard to tell because it was dark) studying together with one dim lantern. One child had the book and was reading to the others and the others would repeat him. The nearby children could read the book upside down, but some were too far away to even see it. Two parents were sitting right next to the table where the children were studying, preparing palm hearts for making oil. They were basically completely in the dark and doing it by touch. Children and parents like that could definitely use an additional light both to enhance their learning and save their vision! I couldn’t even believe what was going on there. I wondered why they don’t study while the sun is out and realized some go back to work on the farms or help around the house, and they also need a few daylight hours to play because these kids work hard!

Random Parts of Night Visit: For my birthday this year, I asked for stickers instead of presents so I could give them to the African kids. A special thanks to all who contributed. They love them! I’ve given out hundreds. They even like the sticky part between the stickers (that isn’t a sticker) and will stick the whole thing on their face or back.

Selection? All the children we found studying (in the two villages we visited plus the community near the school) attended Golden Sunbeam rather than the public school across the street. A teacher at Golden Sunbeam told us this is possibly because they punish the children through various means, such as making them run around the school if their homework isn’t done. I wonder if we should look at children being accountable for finishing their homework as an additional criterion for school selection.

We went to eat at a place called “Alasca” and I got some rice and veggies, without spice. It was probably the best dinner I’ve had since I’ve been here and I definitely raised Solomon’s eyebrows when he saw the amount of time it took me to wolf it down—I appear to be a very picky eater when eating typical spicy dishes (mostly because it makes me sweat and I need a break between bites). We stayed in a hotel at night. It’s the first time I’ve been by myself in a hotel room and was a little strange. It was nice that there was running water there. I remember at a hotel in Ghana last year when I received a bucket of pool water with floaties in it outside my hotel room door to bathe with. This was definitely an improvement. Cheap, not the cleanest, but not creepy like the place that looked like rebel hideout I stayed at in Thailand.

Morning: We left the hotel at 4am to observe what happens in the villages during the dark hours of the morning. There was a group of children walking to the farms to gather cocoa beans to bring back to their homes to dry at about 4:30am. There were also men collecting firewood to sell at the market (they had a truck). The same seamstress that we saw the night before (she works until 11pm) was getting ready to start sewing again around 4:30. There were a few women cooking banku or other dishes that morning as well, some for their families, and some to sell. One was putting sugar she bought from town into bags to sell and holding the flashlight in her mouth. We saw a woman sweeping the dirt with a small flashlight in her mouth. It was generally much quieter in the dark morning hours than in the evening when everyone was still awake (even though some were just sitting in the dark).

Nearly everyone we saw awake in the early morning when it was dark were women. By 5:20 it was light enough to see fairly well and by 5:40 it was light enough to read without straining the eyes. By this time many children were busy fetching water from the boreholes and more people were up sweeping and cooking. I pumped a bucket, too. It was a workout. My guess is that lanterns will primarily be used at night, by children. However, if we could identify some hardworking parents of students such as the seamstress or others who wake up very early, it could be helpful to them. We saw a lot of wells while wandering around the villages. Most were buckets but one was a purse with a hole in the corner. We were passing along a narrow dirt path through the jungle when we ran into a 103 year old men who was just standing by the path near his house. He greeted us and looked rather healthy for a 103 year old.

MGR: Before school, the kids chop the grass, sweep up the chopped grass, or collect wood. I predict they won’t play in the mornings. They will definitely play on it during break times and after school, though. They love it. The village kids sometimes come and play while Golden Sunbeam is in session, but I got the feeling that the teachers chase them off when they see them. Because the mgr wasn’t fixed by the time we left in the evening, we didn’t get an idea about how long the kids will play on it during the evening time. I figure we won’t know for sure for a while since it’s been locked in the evening and can still be considered a novelty.

We wandered around the village even after it was light, talking to some people about what they typically do in the village. Although palm oil and cocoa are the cash crops, there are actually a lot of rice and cassava farmers as well. Our day interviews were fun and I got to give a lot of kids stickers. They were the sparkly kind, and one very small child was shy and didn’t seem to know what to make of it and went back to her mother to steer clear of the obruni. However, whenever I glanced back she was moving her hand back and forth slowly, I assume to catch the light and see the sparkle. We were all pretty tired by the time we did the day visits, so the late night and early morning visits were much more memorable.

Linda

2008-08-02T02:36:00.000-07:00

I met so many amazing people on my mission in South Africa and Botswana, and Ghana was no exception. There seems to be a surplus of strong characters in the whole of Africa, perhaps because the people have led such challenging lives. Sometimes I wonder how in the world people deal with the hand they've been dealt in the game of life. Linda is one of these people. She is my age and has two children, one named Jemima, who is seven, and one named Isaac, who is five. They are so cute. When JJ and I first visited her house, Jemima was shy, but Isaac came bolting out and jumped right into JJ’s arms even though he’s never seen us before. We talked to Linda’s mother and her mother’s friend Elizabeth. Elizabeth is an interesting woman from Nigeria who moved to Ghana because her house burned down. She thinks it was a bomb. She barely got her child out in time. Linda is a seamstress. She was born LDS but has been less active for most of her life. She grew up in Nigeria and can truthfully assert that nothing scares her anymore. For example, her school had a rival school. Some students from the rival school came to her school one day and attacked them. One student died and Linda jumped from the second story window and broke her legs. On another occasion, the bank on her street was robbed by 17-18 year old young men who killed a lot of her neighbors. She said there were bodies all along the street. She was also kidnapped twice. Once in grade school she was taken to a forest where a lot of other girls were being hidden and cut. She was returned a few days later because the man who kidnapped them ‘didn’t like any of them’. The second time she was kidnapped by some women. I can’t believe people’s stories sometimes. Most of us really can’t complain about having a rough life. Linda is generous. She cooked us some spaghetti outside in her ‘kitchen’ and before I left she called me and told me she had a present for me. She had made me a skirt. I tried to give her some money for the material but she told me not to. When I insisted, she told me to give it to her kids, who didn't refuse at all. :-) By the time I left, Jemima and Isaac were treating me like their new aunt. Jemima loved to play with my hair and Isaac liked getting his picture taken. Linda is now engaged, but doesn't like her fiance at all. She feels that she has no choice because her family is pressuring her and no one else wants her with two kids. I am not quite sure what I can do for her now. Any advice would be welcome.

Lasagna Adventures

2008-08-02T02:22:00.000-07:00

One day I decided to make an pseudo-American dish for the family. Let's face it, what's really American besides apple pie and... apple pie? I thought lasagna would do well.

My host mother, Lydia, had gone out to the market to get the ingredients the day before. Unfortunately, the cottage cheese resembled American cottage cheese about as much as a baboon resembles a firehose.

The oven was in Celsius, while the directions were in Fahrenheit. I wasn’t sure of the conversion except that 5/9 or 9/5 was somehow involved. The oven handle is also broken, so I had to stick a knife into a small metal rod and turn it, and I’m never sure which part of the rod is supposed to be pointing at the correct temperature.

Plus, the noodles were from Italy and I had to try to translate the directions into English, because I wasn’t sure if it said, “without pre-cooking” or “required pre-cooking.” I finally determined it was without pre-cooking. So I didn’t cook the noodles before putting them in the oven. JJ woke up from his nap and came in, and being a Spanish speaker, was able to translate a little more of the Italian and he told me, “I think it says here that in order to cook the noodles, the sauce should be molto liquid.” He didn’t know what ‘molto’ meant but fortunately I did from my Italian class in 2001. Unfortunately, the lasagna had been in the oven for about 20 minutes by this point and was definitely not molto liquidy. It was pretty solid meat.

The noodles were not cooking very well, so I took the whole pan out, poured some bottled water over it and put it back in. It ended up cooking about half an hour longer than it was supposed to, but it miraculously turned out all right, albeit a bit dry.

As in, crunchy.

Kweku was the only one in the family who had ever tasted lasagna before and vouched it was authentic, so the rest were none the wiser. I think the next day was one of the only days I was able to take leftovers to work.

Project Quandaries

2008-08-02T02:08:00.000-07:00

I’ve been thinking about so many things in regard to this project. For example, the church here subsidizes scriptures but they don’t give them out for free. This creates a sense of ownership and also encourages the people to take care of it because they won’t get another one for free. We can charge, maybe, $50 for a merry-go-round (to the community, or for the PTA to raise) compared to the $1,200 it costs. I think if we charge a small rental fee for lanterns and let all the proceeds go to the school (for fixing roofs, buying books, etc) it could be a good system, instead of giving it free and all the lanterns getting lost, or not being used. The question is, how do you trust whoever is in charge that they will not pocket it? And who will be in charge? People will also travel far distances from their villages to charge cell phones for 50 cents. We could charge 50 cents for them to charge their cell phones in their village and have the proceeds go to the school. The problem is, the system. We can’t put trust in people. The other problem is we don’t want to break any laws and there are not supposed to be any ‘school fees’ at public schools. So we might run into problems charging for the equipment. I think charging for the lantern rental would be okay because it is private use. Another reason I like them paying a rental fee is that at so many schools, the community members would ask what we were going to give them. At one, they even said, “we know that because we have seen white faces in our community, they are going to solve all our problems.” That kind of thinking is crippling to a nation like this and it made me so mad! We can’t be another NGO dropping in random free stuff and having them expect it. It will empower the community so much more if they have to gather and raise a little money for this thing. They will start getting together and talking about problems and coming up with solutions as they figure out for themselves HOW to use this energy to best serve their particular situation in their community. It might get them going on how to solve other issues as well instead of sitting around waiting for a white person.

Another way of increasing ownership would be that the school has to apply for playground equipment and come up with their own system of what the electricity will be used for and how they can distribute it. They will also need to buy a subsidized lantern back if one breaks and they want a replacement. I would love to use the lights IN the classrooms that are dark, but there would not be enough energy to support that every day. Perhaps it could work for stormy days only when the windows are closed. We can’t do fluorescent lights in Ghana (which could have been a possibility) because the heat attracts mosquitoes, which is bad because of malaria.

After visiting the schools, I have more of an idea of what selection criteria to use in choosing a school. There has to be community leadership and unity (one village I visited had a conflict over who the chief was going to be and ended up on national news). There has to be a good headmaster (although they tend to be transient, they can get the system off to a good start). The students should be disciplined and listen to the teachers. They have to have books and supplies so they can study. A strong PTA and teacher enthusiasm are important. The distance they have to walk to get to school could be a factor (one school I visited, it takes them an hour to walk, it’s muddy, and sometimes they have to swim, or they only come to school 2-3 days out of the week because of the rain and the nature of the path). The size of the school is a factor because if there are too many students, they will both crowd the mgr, and it will be impossible to distribute lanterns. Community activities are a factor because if the kids farm all day outside of school and are too tired by the end, they may not even use light for studying. Or the parents could get upset because they are playing after school instead of coming home to farm. Some schools have very difficult, bumpy, easily-flooded roads that could prevent us from coming for maintenance work. I’m sure there are more, but these are a few items to take into consideration. I can't yet rate this selection criteria. It seems to me if one of the factors is bad enough to a degree, the school shouldn't be considered at all. There is bound to be a trade-off at any school and sometimes I feel that since these are factors that cannot necessarily be quantified, going with the gut might end up being the best selection criteria. The gut never lies.

The Joys of Networking

2008-08-02T01:11:00.000-07:00

One of the most important lessons I've learned this summer is that successful organizations need to network, top-down, bottom-up, and middle-out. This means we need support from the government and other high-brows, the village leaders and villagers, and organizations similar to ours such as NGOs and universities.

Top-Down

I have had the opportunity to work closely with the Ministry of Education in Ghana, particularly Stephen Adu (the head of the ministry), and leaders in the Curriculum Resource Development Division (CRDD). The first time I met with them, I delivered a powerpoint of the organization to the nine circuit supervisors of the regions in which the pilot project will be operated (Ga West, Ga East, and Dangme West). The pilot project will include six schools. Five of the public schools are in the greater Accra area, yet the schools had to be carefully selected to make sure they will take care of the equipment and use the lanterns for good. The Ministry helped us in this regard by providing district supervisors to escort us to 18 needy schools in the three districts, from which we ultimately chose five. Later meetings with the ministry included getting letters of support in order to apply for the Social Welfare certificate, to see where the science lab can fit with the Ghanaian curriculum, and so forth.

I was also able to attend a small portion of the Lighting Africa Conference, sponsored by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). IFC conducts all kinds of research into electricity needs throughout Africa, including types of lamps people in various areas prefer at night. The conference was actually a competition in which organizations try to solve Africa's electricity problem by providing creative sources of power generation. From this conference, I learned that what we are doing is not unique in terms of electric lighting, but only in terms of power generation. Most contenders involved solar panels. Others were interesting, like an exercise machine that powered a tv--so as long as you exercise, you can watch. Some groups had information about powering various electronic devices that we hadn't yet considered, such as TVs and cell phones. What if Empower Playgrounds was able to charge villagers cell phones for the same fee they normally have to walk all the way into town to pay (typically 50 pesewas/cents) and then filter those proceeds into a school feeding program or to fix a hole in the school roof? Cell phones require a minimal amount of energy compared to the lanterns and the schools could use the income. Furthermore, the issue of carbon financing was brought up at the conference, which inspired some new thoughts. Basically, organizations that emit too much carbon can purchase carbon credits by donating to organizations that reduce carbon emissions by replacing them with other sources. Empower Playgrounds, by providing children with lanterns, is essentially replacing bobos and kerosene lamps which are harmful health-wise. Anyway, the conference assured me that renewable energy IS a major concern in Ghana, once I looked at all the statistics. The conference was sponsored by the World Bank and held in a five-star beach resort. I later met with IFC's CEO, Cyril Kattah, to discuss the project. He was very supportive and said they unfortunately want to fund businesses rather than NGOs, but that he would partner with us and recommend us to organizations that are looking to do some good. Perhaps we can receive some free lanterns through this partnership.
http://lightingafrica.org/
http://www.ifc.org/carbonfinance

Middle-Out

My meetings with the World Bank were awesome! Kathy Bain is the leader here. Apparently, 1/3 of the budget for Ghana goes to infrastructure, which I think is good. In my opinion, nothing builds countries faster than good roads! How do you get anything in or out without them, including food! 60% of people in rural areas have access to water, which is pretty good. Energy and civil reform are the two biggest challenges to growth in Ghana. There is a food shortage in Ghana currently, and the price of rice has increased 50% in the last three months. She is trying to get more money to subsidize fertilizer, distribute seeds, and create a public works program to rebuild irrigation that was lost in the floods and droughts in the north. It will provide employment and help fix irrigation problems. One main challenge in Ghana for them is that there are no systems in place to measure what regions are in the greatest need, so it is hard to know where to help. I started asking Eunice, the education expert and a Ghanaian, a lot of questions. She said there are 400 schools meeting under trees. The schools with the holes in the roofs are better schools. She said 25-30% of children are not in school. She suggested the schools compete a little for the mgr. I met with Eunice again on three more occasions and she was always able to provide a useful perspective concerning Ghana's educational needs, what will and won't work. She enlightened us about the federal law that prohibits anyone from asking children at public schools to bring money for anything. I don’t think we will be charging for a merry-go-round. She said after the installation we could go to the PTA and ask if they would be willing to contribute for maintenance. She was in favor of charging for lantern use, however. She said it will encourage ownership and the community wants to have pride and feel as though it is contributing (which isn’t the sense I’ve gotten from most of the communities). She told us staggering break times in order to allow more children to play is not feasible because the teachers will take advantage to take a longer break time, and that it is too easy for children to pretend it is their break time when they are supposed to be in class. At schools where too many children are in the village and they all share one building, sometimes school will take place in shifts. The morning shift kids will wander around the village during the morning and if asked, will say they are on the evening shift and vise versa. Another helpful suggestion was that one teacher, one community member, and one student should be there watching and helping and that we should leave the community some tools so they can help with maintenance. An idea that sparked was that instead of paying, the parents of students who receive lanterns can take turns monitoring the playtime of children during the evening to measure how many hours they play and also make sure the kids are playing safely (for the first little while). Eunice liked the project because she said students will miss some days of school here or there and then they will drop out if they miss enough days, but playground equipment will entice them to come. She also suggested we contact successful people that have come out of these villages in order to see if they would be willing to donate one to their home village. She gave us a lot of other contacts, as well.

We visited USAID which was interesting with its statistics, but I still wasn’t sure exactly what programs it was implementing by the end—besides a free lunch program at some schools, distributing mosquito nets, and printing out books for children in their native language (they believe they will learn better if they read in their native language first and then switch to English). I learned that 70% of the population in Ghana in the three northern provinces live on less than $1 a day. Ghana is doing very well compared to a lot of surrounding countries. HIV/AIDS is only 2% and life expectancy is 57 (very good compared to some countries in Africa I have visited). The main problems that I see are access to education, clean water, roads/transportation, and employment opportunities. It wasn't a very viable partner, but still good to see what programs are being backed by the US government.

The West Africa AIDS Foundation visit was very impressive. I liked the directors a lot; they are a married Ghanaian couple. I worked with them a bit to discover how to establish a strong NGO as far as finances and auditing is concerned. In fact, they recommended the auditor I ended up using for Empower Playgrounds. I could tell the head woman, who is a doctor, cared so much about her patients. She told a story about a baby with AIDS. The husband had come in (he is HIV-positive but did not want the wife to know) and told them to get the wife and baby to come test without telling them he sent them or that he is positive. The baby tested positive, and the baby died a few days later. The wife agreed to go to counseling about HIV, but when it came time for the physical test, she refused. The WAAF doctor said many times wives will be afraid to tell husbands to use protection even if they know the husband is being promiscuous, because it is culturally unacceptable, or what will she do if he leaves her.

Osu Orphanage was only productive in terms of the viability of installing equipment not only in public schools, but also orphanages. There did not seem to be enough other resources, such as reading materials, to viably do this at this particular orphanage. It was sure fun to play with the kids, though.

We visited SOS-Tema, which is an impressive place with great facilities and landscaping. The kids were much more independent than at the orphanage, though still friendly. We could tell they received much more love and care. There are 10 orphans and a ‘mom’ in each house who make a family. There are 133 SOS Villages worldwide. We saw the kids doing their African drumming and dancing; they were all gathered just for fun. It is an incredible program. I would have a hard time as a donor deciding whether to give to the orphanage that clearly has a greater immediate need, or an organization like this which has more overhead but is more efficient and gives the kids a much better education and opportunities in the end.

We met with Samuel Asare at Global Sustainable Energy Solutions (GSES). He was very helpful and gave us a lot of contacts. He also brought us some coffee and was perplexed when all three of us took water. He has been involved in government evaluations of lighting projects in rural areas and was quite interested in the project. He was in the DENG building which is run as a business and sells solar panels.

The Energy Foundation is an example of a fruitless attempt at networking, but obviously I have to meet all I can--because I never know which ones might end up being helpful! Kofi thought it was a good project but seemed semi-eager to get home since it was towards the end of the day.

The Ethics of Dealing with Government Authorities

2008-08-02T00:43:00.000-07:00

Summer 2008 was my second trip to Ghana. I spent two weeks in Ghana last year with the MPA study abroad, where we trained nonprofit leaders in budgeting, program evaluation, grant writing, finance, and other skills. I have also lived in South Africa for a year and Botswana for six months. My experiences in Africa have taught me to laugh off many interesting situations, so I wasn't particularly shocked or surprised about the following event.

Is it okay for government officers to request money or goods?
When we arrived at the Accra airport, one of the security guards wanted the book JJ was reading (Fahrenheit 451). JJ said he was still reading it, but was able to both appease him and perform some missionary work by providing him a free copy of The Book of Mormon instead. Last year, I brought an enormous box full of supplies for New Life orphanage in Cape Coast. The customs official there decided to do an extremely detailed search of that box, selecting some items such as pens and clothing for further inspection. She finally resealed the box without putting the selected items back in, said, "I like these things," and motioned for me to go. I don't know what it is with the 'give me' mentality of sense of entitlement in some African nations. Yet I know it is not appropriate for an airport security guard to essentially steal from orphans. It reminded me of a story I heard in which a nonprofit donated many diapers to an orphanage. They went in the front door and straight out the back door for the orphanage staff to sell on the streets. Yet, some argue this is okay, because it provides various perks to the orphanage staff, giving them utils and allowing them to commit more to their job. I often grapple with the 'rightness' and 'wrongness' versus the 'cultural' nature of these kinds of activities. Maybe my opinion is too strong. I don't mean to be ethnocentric, but people, let's not steal. So what does one do when confronted with this kind of situation? Do we stay on our mountain and refuse to give in, thus opening ourselves up to vulnerability--especially if we're being asked to bribe the officers when we've done something wrong? Or, do we play the cultural game and look at it as a tip for an underpaid official's services? If we do take the second view, is it only encouraging corruption? In Ghana, I was told that senior officers will often create a bribe quoto junior officers have to fulfill. This puts pressure on policemen and women out in the field to get money from people because they have to pay a certain percentage to their superior. In Nigeria, some citizens fight back by ripping the currency in half before discretely offering it to policemen. The policemen slip it into their pocket so quickly, they don't find out it is in half until the car is already gone.

So, is it play along and go about your life, refuse and get yourself in trouble, or feed the hog?

Introduction

2008-08-01T23:55:00.000-07:00

This blog serves to document the creation of a new nonprofit organization, Empower Playgrounds. The project began about a year ago and was the brain child of Ben Markham, who served a full-time LDS mission in Ghana with his wife, Julie. While there, he noticed several things: the children did not have toys to play with, the schools were dark, and there were no hands-on lab activities to teach the children science. Ka-bam! The concept of Empower Playgrounds came along and Markham registered the organization in the US, which is now an official 501(c)3 public charity. Meanwhile, BYU engineering students were enlisted to design and build an electricity producing merry-go-round.

Empower Playgrounds designs, builds, and installs playground equipment in rural schools in Ghana that are off the electric grid. The equipment stores energy from children at play in a car battery, which is later transferred to LED lanterns for the children to study with at night. The project has three main goals: (1) to provide educational recreation to children in rural schools in Ghana, (2) to provide electricity for children to study with--and I am toying with the idea of renting lanterns to parents to provide increased opportunity for after-dark economic activities, and (3) to create a science lab to teach children principles of energy transfer, physics, and mechanics. The third goal is perhaps the most interesting as hands-on opportunities often have much greater sticking value than lectures.

I first saw the project on BYU's homepage and promptly read the article. I remember running into a friend at lunch and expressing not only my excitement for the project, but also my regret that I was studying non-profit management rather than engineering. Little did I know at that moment exactly HOW involved I would later become in this project.

About a month later I received an email that Markham was looking for some student interns to spend the summer on-the-ground in Ghana. I interviewed, of course, and when Markham found out that I would finish my MPA in April, he hired me full-time. as Executive Director. It is daunting, but the little entrepreneur in me has finally set itself free. It is the best job in the world. By the way, Ben Markham, although 'retired,' tends to continue to work full-time. I occasionally receive emails from him about how he and his wife spent a few hours running around on the merry-go-round in his garage to test a new design he's come up with. He also takes care of all the technical elements of the equipment (since I'm not so savvy with engineering).

I spent three months in Ghana in the summer of 2008 to get the organization registered, figure out the business aspects, launch the lantern distribution, create criteria for selection of schools, and so forth. A student physics intern named JJ accompanied me and built the first electricity producing zip-line in the workshop in Ghana. A n electricity generating swing set is being created at BYU-Idaho. There is also a sociology BYU intern currently living in the villages in Ghana where the next five merry-go-rounds are scheduled for installation. The details will follow in future posts. Please feel free to contact me with any ideas of how to improve the organization, increase energy output, and/or teach the science labs.

Sarah M. Hall
Executive Director, Empower Playgrounds
3214 North University Avenue #501
Provo, UT, 84604, USA

81/14 Forest Avenue
Dzorwulu
Accra, Ghana

sarahmckenziehall@gmail.com