Getting to Ghana

Monday, September 3, 2012

Back to Africa!

If there is one thing I've learned in my 2 trips to Ghana it is this; Coming "home" isn't much fun. For months now I've been observing from afar, connected to the children and the orphanage only through phone calls to Mama Jane and pictures posted by recent volunteers. To be at such a disconnect from a place I feel so connected to is painful to say the least.

Happily, I don't have to wait much longer to be connected again. As I mentioned before I will be returning for 3 weeks in October. I'd like to depart on the 10th of October enabled through your donations to help accomplish the following things

$500 to get the oven working and making them money

$100-$200 to start a small craft business for the older girls (they made me a lovely crocheted bag of the Ghanaian flag earlier this year, I'm going to encourage them to make more that can be sold over here)

$2400(rough estimate to include the 20+ new children since I last made this purchase) to purchase a months supply of food for all 100 children living in the compound

$3000 for a down payment on land. They desperately need to move out of the compound they're currently living in and $3000 of a down-payment on land costing in total around $16,000 would enable Mama Jane to begin collecting local donations of cement, timber and workers to help get that project moving.

$1000 per month to pay necessary workers.

Other things we need include:
-Volunteers with business experience, ready and willing to help the organization be run more like a business.
-Volunteers in particular over the age of 25. We have a number of older children (20-23 years) who, understandably, have a hard time taking direction from volunteers years younger than them. If you're interested in volunteering please visit www.thepottersvillage.net and email Mama Jane directly.

Abena

Yaya in her robe

First day with the drums

Bernice

What? Who rolled around in the dirt?

Prince beating his chest during football

Sisters Akofa (face covered) and Bernice

Bismark being fly

Gifty and I

Mercy and Francis

Akos

Emmanuel

Inspired by a picture of my mother I showed the kids last year, here are a short series of the oft-attempted, oft-failed Junior Birdman. There are many more floating around on the interwebs, I'll make finding them my next misson.

Foster and Francis attempt Junior Birdman

Bismark

Anita's first attempt wasn't so grand

Emmanuel wanted to show off his skills

Aaaannd Ema's...9th attempt?

I finally figured out how to upload videos! It was embarrassingly easy. Regardless, enjoy.

Godwyn playing bubbles with Papa John

A troupe of kids singing that all-time VBS hit:
The Hippo Song

Boys carrying the drums to the orphanage for the first time. They had to stop about 15 feet out the gate to make sure they still worked.

Princilla jammin' to the drums

Thanks for reading! Any donations are welcome and appreciated :)

Monday, August 6, 2012

An early return

I will be making a short return trip (3 weeks) to Ghana this October. I hope to make plans for my lengthy stay next year and take some steps towards self-reliance with the organization while I'm there.
For roughly $500USD we can start using the industrial oven purchased late last year and they can start selling bread.
I would also like to offer Beatrice, the woman who cooks for all the volunteers and children most days, $500USD to kickstart her own business by funding her first purchase of phone credit to sell to the volunteers/around Dodowa. Beatrice works exceptionally hard and could really use this extra income to help keep her young daughter Gifty in school.
They can also, as always, use any donations for food. If you'd like to donate to any of these causes or if you're interested in contributing towards my cost of travel any donations would be much appreciated. I'll update more when as plans develop.