Archive for the Volunteering Category

The final week of the second cycle of the Adaklu Waya livelihood project was quite exciting and full of goodbyes. On Monday, the team did not have much of a busy day. We had our our final one to one’s and the maize team met with their group in anfoe to discuss some important issues to pave way for the next cycle. In the evening, we had a team meeting to discuss details on our debrief in Accra and the departure of the UKV’s as they leave for London on Monday.

On Tuesday, some team members took a trip to the Adaklu mountains for a hike. The team were able to complete the mountain hike in under 4 hours. Upon return, the team working with the Amuzudeve womens groundnut team went to the village to distribute dues cards to members of the group. Later in the evening, some volunteers join the anfoe basic school in their carols night.

On Wednesday morning, the team had a breakfast meeting with the district co-ordinating director of the district assembly, where we discuss issues and challenges concerned with the project and the partnership with the district assembly. The maize team also had a final meeting with the anfoe group and the project co-ordinator to finalise issues with the group and the Kente team also met with their group to finalise issues.
In the evening, we had the Ada awards to award volunteers for their individual contributions to the team. We enjoyed some sausage and vegetable khebab with some ‘sobolo’ juice at the all formal event. The team leaders organised a love hearts activity, giving each team member a small booklet, designed for each other team member to complete with comments and experiences which they have shared with the person.

On Thursday, we had our final ‘My Culture Day’ presentation from kitt, who spoke about her hometown, Milton Keynes. The Vegetable team went to waya to meet with their group and say good bye to them. The media team also worked on the debrief presentation video.

On Friday, the media team continued working on the debrief videos, whereas some volunteers were cleaning their host homes, packing and saying goodbye to their host families. The team met at 2:00 pm to complete the water sachet football net and clean up the blue house.

On Saturday morning, the bus for departure arrived very early and volunteers said their goodbye’s and departed our placement for accra at 9:00 am. We arrived at the hotel in accra at 3pm, where we checked in to our individual rooms and rested.

On Sunday, which is the debrief day, Volunteers also had to share their summarised personal case study with the team. We delivered presentations for our various projects and as usual the Adaklu waya livelihood project video presentation was obviously the best. Awards were given to star volunteers and best counterpart pairs of each project. Rahim took the Star volunteer award, with Sara and Christabel taking the best counterpart pair award of the Adaklu waya livelihood project.

On Monday, some volunteers went to the art centre to get some stuffs and at 3pm all volunteers went to the airport to see off the UKV’s. It was so sad saying goodbye to each other and the tears could not be stopped from flowing.
Overall this project has been a life changing experience for every single experience. We have begun a relation that will last forever. It has been great volunteering on this project.

Chloe and Rahim

This week is a slow week since we are almost done with our project here in Adaklu. Monday the 7^th of December 2015, we journeyed back from Cape Coast to Adaklu, where we stayed at the weekend to visit our other volunteers at Abro and cape. We had a stopover at the Accra mall for shopping and food; followed by an eventful bus journey back home as it was a volunteer’s birthday. Due to our exhausting weekend, and late arrival time, we were given the rest of Monday off.

On Tuesday morning, Esenam and Alex had their Action citizenship day on MDG’s (Millennium Development Goals) and in the evening we had Christabel’s post birthday party self-organized and sponsored by her counterpart Sara which we couldn’t have on Monday because we were all tired when we came back from Cape Coast. Fun was had by all with food, drinks, games, music and dancing, where everybody was till they retired to bed. We also had our usual Tuesday meetings and weekly updates; livelihood groups were discussed and other matters relating to our upcoming events were also sorted out.

On Wednesday we had a fufu post birthday party in the morning, which enabled all the volunteers to get together and share some traditional African food. After the planning and logistic group met to discuss our upcoming event and in the evening we had our sketch and choreography rehearsals for the same event. The sports day committee also met on Wednesday to plan the games which the school children would partake in.

It was a very cold Thursday morning, and the maize group went to waya to bid goodbye to their waya farming group before they leave the Adaklu community and the planning and logistic team went with them to survey the event ground for the upcoming event on Sunday. The sports day committee met again today to sort and organize the various items the volunteers donated into prizes for the children who would partake. Some of the volunteers who teach at the Anfoe E.P School went to the school to bid both the teachers and students goodbye. And the groundnut group also had their meeting with the farmers to package, price and label their products ‘’Dzowe’’ and “Tom Brown” for the event on Sunday.

Friday was eventful, where the volunteers had a spelling bee and sport competition organized for the students of the Anfoe E.P basic school, in other to give away the gifts they brought from their various homes when coming on the placement. The children who took the first, second and third positions got storybooks, shirts and shorts, pens, crayons, game boxes and participants also took away some valuable gifts as well. It was so much fun especially seeing these children smiling and rushing home to show their presents to their family. Volunteer Sara presented her ‘My Cultures Day’ with a twist as she has lived in various countries throughout her life, so she took her fellow volunteers through the different cultures found in each. She named it my cultures day because she came from three different countries. We learnt about life in Poland, Algeria, Spain, Bahrain and Wales. She finished off her presentation by teaching everyone a Ceilidh, with everyone up on their feet learning the traditional Welsh dance.

The weekend saw a funeral so close to where volunteers stay, today Saturday and most of the volunteers found it easy to just walk around and watch people dancing, crying and remembering. Some volunteers met to design and paint posters and banners for the event the following day; we had volunteer Alberta overcoming the lack of resources and using her fingers to paint a banner! At 4pm, all the volunteers headed to Waya to walk through the community and inform and remind them about the event tomorrow. The volunteers stumbled upon a wedding at the church, and some took time out to enjoy the festivities. The volunteer participants also had their last sketch and choreography rehearsals for the whole dream team before our Sunday event.

On Sunday, the volunteers woke up early for the event, we tidied up the event ground; planning and logistic group taking up the lead and reminding everyone of their assigned duties for when the event started. We headed back home after an awesome team effort; putting up shades, chairs and making sure everyone would have a great time. After lunch we headed back to the event ground, where the volunteers rallied while the bus shuttled participants of the various livelihood groups from their communities to the event location. We had a successful event, with lots of dancing and talks from resource personnel’s on important of marketing and branding. The choreography was well presented which got the crowd cheering and the sketch clearly delivered our message about marketing and branding, savings, good packaging and marketing skills.

The livelihood groups also did well in presenting their end products, we had waya kekeli maize group presenting branded “azikpeli”, Anfoe Kente group, presenting different types of Kente which were well branded, Waya vegetable group also presenting well dried Okro seeds which were also branded, and also well prepared “Shito” made from different types of vegetables coming from their farms. We also had the Waya mawulikplimi women’s association who are all groundnut farmers presenting Groundnut cake, groundnut paste, and roasted groundnuts all well branded and labelled and lastly we had the Anfoe Edem groundnut group which presented “tom brown” and our locally made “dzowe” which was very well branded. After the competition, the judges declared the Anfoe Edem groundnut group as the overall winner, the Waya mawulikplimi women’s association had the second position, the waya vegetable group had the third position, the Anfoe Kente group had the fourth positions and the Waya kekeli maize group had the fifth position. The first, second and third winners had certificates wellington boots, cutlasses, nose masks, and gloves as prizes and the other winners had a certificate of participation.

The event was a success and very fun. As this is our last event and week in Waya, volunteers had a nice time chatting, interacting and dancing with the community members. We all got back to Anfoe had a brief congratulatory meeting with the team leaders and the coordinator and which we all retired to bed after as we were all so exhausted.

Meghan and Christabel.

This Monday it was the turn of Tilly and Richard to give an Active Citizenship presentation to the group. They did the session on Woman rights and Gender Equality and it turned out to be one of the best ‘ACD’ presentations so far. It got everyone’s attention hooked and we all precipitated in the discussion. We all got well educated on the views of other and the difference and similarities between our cultures.

On Tuesday the 1^st of December we all met up at 9am to cut more sachets for the Goal net we are making for the local JHS School. Later in the day the Groundnut Group registered the Amuzudeve Groundnut Farmers Association with the District Assembly. The Amuzudeve group have been so committed and so very thankful to us and to Lattitude ICS that it was a real pleasure to have them finally registered and be able to know that in the future the cycles will continue working with them, helping them with training and supporting their small village community. The days Team leaders platform was fulfilled by Winnie and Sera and they deliver very well all day, keeping everyone up to date and hosting the weekly team meeting.

On Wednesday teaching continued in Anfoe Primary school and Waya JHS by some of the volunteers. The Kente Group met up and showed the volunteers how they have started really preparing for the Awareness Event we are holding on Marketing and Branding. Amy Jone and Chloe hosted our social that evening - it was a night of fun games and food! It was our Co-Ordinator Derricks birthday and the team leaders brought the group Pizza and drinks as well. Since Derrick could do be around that evening the whole team called him up and put him on loud speaker so that we could all sing the happy birthday song to him.

On Thursday the Maize Group went to Waya to have a meeting focusing on Marketing and Branding. The Maize Farmers designed a sticker and a slogan they wanted to use on the ‘Maize and Groundnut’ product at our Awareness Event and the Volunteers took a sample of their design ready to digitise and print off some labels for them. Matt Edwards held a wonderful My Culture Day presentation on Devon and the South West of England – we learnt everything from the correct order to put cream and jam a scone (cream first) and how to speak like a proper South Weston farm boy!

This Friday was National Farmers day. We were all invited to the Adaklu District Best Farmers Award Ceremony and our Team Leader Matt was given opportunity to present an award to the Best Groundnut Farmer, who happened to come from one of our livelihood groups in our home village of Anfoe. The celebrations were overwhelming with much singing, drumming and dancing which all the volunteers got up and got involved it! That afternoon Kitt and Rahim had a Kwik all about Video Blogging and Editing. They filmed part of the session and then had the volunteers turn it in to a short video – all was going well until Chloe accidently deleted the whole project file! But at least we all learnt a valuable lesion on saving work and Data storage!

We woke up at dawn on Saturday to visit the other projects in Cape Coast and Abrobiano. We set of a 4.30am and stopped at Accra Mall on the way for some tasty breakfast! We arrived at Abrobiano (a small Fishing town) at 2.30 pm and enjoyed a delicious lunch outside the ICS Lattitude library before a community tour. Later after being taken to our host homes we went to the beach for a swim! However the waves were a bit strong and it turned in to more of a sandy, salty and watery battle then a pleasant dip. That night we were treated to a chilled out bon fire under the stars.

On Sunday after breakfast at Abrobiano we left for the Kakum national park Canopy Walk. The experience was quite thrilling and existing – especially for those of us who are afraid of heights! We then moved on to Cape Coast and got to see the Football for Hope centre where the volunteers work. We had Lunch and got to go on a tour which including visiting Cape Coast Market. The hustle and bustle of a big city market was quite a shock for us after being in our sleepy village of Anfoe for so long. We then all played a pretty intense Football match (with the team sustaining a few injuries) before moving on to the office where we had our dinner. Later in the evenings we went out to the Goil Filling Station where the live band kept us dancing and dancing late into the night.

Kitt & Shawukiya

Hello, our names are Alex and Winifred.

I’m (Alex, 21) from a town called Muswell Hill in North London. I’m loving everyday of my experience in Ghana with Lattitude ICS. A couple months preceding my departure, I graduated from the University of Nottingham after three years of studying. As a opposed to getting a job straight away, I couldn’t resist the temptation to take a year off for travelling, to have invaluable experiences you simply wouldn’t find back in the UK. I’ve been living in Adaklu Waya, Ghana, for more than two months now and couldn’t be more happier and appreciative of the lifestyle I’ve come to find. It’s the pure communal nature of this town, the wildlife, the work we’re conducting, there’s so many things to value.

I am Winifred from the Volta Region of Ghana . My hometown is the legal route and the final destination to the Democratic Republic of Togo. Being a product of University for Development Studies I really love community development works and have passion for humanitarian projects. In fact being on this ICS program has helped me to be open minded and integrate into other people’s culture.

We will be describing the previous week, just a snippet of our grand experience here in Adaklu.

Every Monday, two members of the group (one UKV and one ICV), are tasked with performing an ACD (Active Citizenship Day) presentation to the rest of the group. The turn was Ruby and Alberta’s. Their subject of choice was poverty. This is a very interesting and informative presentation where the group learnt far more about extent of global poverty, the differences between relative and absolute poverty, and ways in which poverty can be eradicated. It was the type of presentation which really makes one comprehend the importance of the work they are conducting. The whole team became fully engaged in the discussion over the issue of poverty. Even after the presentation had finished, we stayed behind to debate and understand our different conceptions of poverty and how best to eliminate it.

Tuesday saw the commencement our weekly team meeting. In the first few weeks of the cycle, these meetings would last about 40 minutes. It’s a chance for each primary team (Groundnut, Maize, vegetable and Kente) to inform the rest of the group of their recent activities, what they’ve achieved, what’s next ect.. This also applies to our secondary teams (media, planning and logistics, safety and security, marketing and events). The meetings which were once 40 minutes however now last almost 2 hours. It’s a potent indicator of how much more work we’re doing now that we’ve matured into the cycle. On top of the usual group catch ups, we also discussed our upcoming first aid event in Anfoe and our approaching visit to Cape Coast.

Wednesday is usually a more relaxed day for volunteers. There’s no meetings or presentations to be given, only a social to attend to in the evening. This is not to say we’re not doing anything. Most of us will be engaged in meetings for their farming groups or their secondary groups. Some of us also choose to go teaching at the local primary school, I (Alex) enjoy this very much. Usually 3 or 4 times a week, I will teach my P5 class math, history or English. When I initially started teaching, I was supported and aided by a Ghanaian teacher. However, as a result of maternity leave, she was no longer able to teach her pupils. This unfortunately left the P5 class without a teacher. As result, I try my best to go into school as much as I can, to teach and set the pupils homework, to offer what I can in the absence of their teacher. Several other volunteers also perform a similar task. Rahim for example has been teaching in Waya JHS. He has been doing this since the start of our cycle and is one of the few to still do it.

On Wednesday evening, all the volunteers attending Matt and Richard’s social. Much to the delight of the group, there was a bonfire, as well as drinks and food prepared for us. We played a game called assassin which soon became very popular. It’s a fairly complicated game in which each volunteer is secretly designated a role, it’s a game of mystery and deceit. The aim is to decipher which two volunteer’s are the assassins before the entire team are eliminated. Even after the social had officially finished, we continued to play a few more rounds. As it got later, many people started to leave, however a small group stayed behind to listen to music by the fire, we talked into the night.

We had our MCD (My Culture Day) presentation on Thursday. This is a chance for sole volunteer, or a group of volunteer’s, to tell the rest of the team about where they come from. This week, it was Tilly, Ruby and Chloe who educated the group about the South East of England, they focused largely on the City of London. It was a fascinating presentation which taught the group about events such as the fire of London and the bubonic plague. As a team, we also learnt more about the culture of this part of the UK.

In the afternoon, we group conducted their first aid event in Anfoe. Having performed the same presentation in Waya the week before, each volunteer was far more confident about their role. You could see this by just how swiftly and professionally the presentation ran. My (Alex) designated topic to inform the local community about was small cuts and epilepsy. Epilepsy was a very interesting topic because there is a very strong stigma against the mental condition. There were many things to address. For example, that epilepsy wasn’t contagious, furthermore that it wasn’t anything to do with witchcraft or the devil. This is very rewarding to educate the community these facts since a housemate at university had the condition. It was fulfilling to know that perhaps people in the local community who suffer from epilepsy will now be better taken care of.

On Friday, we had our KWIK (know what I know) presentation. This was performed by Alberta and Tilly. The first half of their KWIK was focused on how to make a particular type of Ghanaian jewelry with fabric

which involves a lot of buttons. The group were split into groups of 4 and were tasked to design a piece. When we were finished, all pieces were displayed and we voted as a team which one was the best. The second half of the presentation was headed by Tilly, it was focused on human anatomy which was very interesting, we’re sure each member learnt something new about the human body.

After a fairly long week, the weekend was welcomed graciously by the team. But there were few sleep ins on Saturday as most of the volunteers were up and ready to play football at 6am. We can definitely see major improvements in how we play together. It’s a very enjoyable way to spend the morning. Bring on Cape and Abro teams! In the afternoon, some members of the team also practiced a skit they will perform in the upcoming awareness event on marketing and branding. Aside from these, most of the volunteers were free to relax and enjoy the weekend.

It’s a weird thought to consider how little time we have left in this beautiful community. But we cant wait to utilize that time as much as possible before we are both home. It’s been a pleasure to catch you up on the activities of our previous week. Thank you our lovely fans for reading our snippet of our journey. We hope we have the best of luck as we enter into the last few weeks of this cycle! Akpe name!

Monday morning saw the Adaklu team bid farewell to the rest of the ICS volunteers that they had hosted after Mid Placement Review-(MPR) but not before the ladies of the team cooked a hearty breakfast of omelette and pancakes for the 55 strong volunteers. The boys also managed to squeeze in one last early morning football match, which again saw the Ada/Abro team beat the Cape Coast team. Due to a severe lack of sleep the previous night, and as a treat for all our hosting efforts, our project co-ordinator gave the team a day off to rest up for the rest of the week, and all farming group meetings were reassigned. This resulted in mass relocation of majority of the volunteers to the team communal area, where mattresses were gathered for a team bonding nap (some volunteers opted to watch movies instead).

Volunteers Chilling out

Back to business on Tuesday!Our Active Citizens Day was rescheduled to that day due to our day off on Monday. ICV Bella and UKV Kitt educated the group on sanitation and the proper way in which to wash their hands. They supplied buckets and soap for the volunteers to all have a go!Our team leaders for the day were UKV Tilly and ICV Richard, and they hosted the weekly team meeting. During this our farmer groups and sub-groups gave updates to the rest of the team. The upcoming group trip to Cape Coast was also discussed and the team clarified the teaching rota for Anfoe and Waya basic school for the rest of the cycle. During the meeting the team were informed that the Agric officer (TO) would be taking over all the training and teaching for the farming groups. Star Volunteer of the week went to UKV Meghan for her contribution to the M&E team, and counterpart pair of the week went to ICV Amy and UKV Chloe!

Volunteers learning how to make beads

On Wednesday, the groundnut group had training on marketing and branding with TO and so are prepared now to teach their farmers on the importance of good marketing and branding techniques.The team also had a First Aid meeting today, hosted by UKV Kitt Owen, to plan for the Lattitude ICS First Aid community sessions. The meeting was attended by medical staff from the local clinic, who briefed the volunteers on the correct way to treat ailments with resources available locally. The Kente group also met and were able to discuss what direction training will move in future. Today’s social was hosted by UKV Tilly and ICV Shawukiya -they lead the team in a game of headbands that had everyone in good spirits. Shawukiya made the volunteers a local drink from her northern region, and it definitely cleared the system, the ginger and chilli giving the drink a firey boost!

Adult Education session ongoing

Thursday morning saw the volunteers meet with the Vegetable and Maize farmers in Waya for training sessions. UKV Alex hosted today’s My Culture Day, focusing on the American cultural due to his family heritage from New York. He gave a brief history of the continent, covering the discovery of America to the civil and international wars, and we’re sure we speak for all the volunteers when we say we all learnt something! His use of clips from movies to show the American stereotype raised many a chuckle from the volunteers. The vegetable group met today, and the volunteers helped the farmers fill out the second baseline survey. The Groundnut Anfoe group also met with their farmers today and coached them on good agricultural practices. The First Aid committee also met this evening to finalise the plans for the First Aid sessions, and were able to plan the volunteer’s roles and the resources needed for the events.

Friday was a busy day in camp!! The morning started with our Project Co-ordinator accidentally locking himself and two volunteers in their bedroom. After a few phone calls, some tinkering and a visit from a local carpenter, they were all able to get free in time to ensure everyone got their weekly allowance! Planning and Logistics team met this morning to discuss and plan the Lattitude ICS awareness event on Marketing and Branding, and lots of progress was made on that front, with the volunteers getting more excited as the event approaches. The monitoring and evaluation team were also busy today, finalising the analysis and report on another Baseline survey carried out amongst the registered farmer groups. Today’s KWIK was hosted by UKV Sara and ICV Amy. Amy led a session on how to make bead bracelets, something enjoyed by all volunteers, and Sara led a session on self-defence, something taken too seriously by some volunteers!!All in all, the KWIK was a huge success and wholly enjoyed by all. Friday evening saw a few of the UKVs and ICVs take a trip to Waya to record an announcement for the community PA system promoting the First Aid events, the first of which was to be hosted that Sunday!

Saturday morning saw another early morning football session for the boys and Sara and Christabel, as the team prepare for a rematch against the Cape Coast team in a few weeks’ time. ICV Amy hosted another beading session with UKVs and ICVs to teach those interested more techniques. The team met in the afternoon to discuss the First Aid event the next day, and the whole team were briefed on their roles and how the event was to play out. ICV Alberta continued with her adult education lessons today, and had 5 community members turn up, keen to learn the alphabet and basic maths. The safety and security met after adult education to do a risk assessment for the First Aid event that Sunday. Saturday saw the wrapping up of the last of the volunteers one-to-one catch ups with the team leaders, and thankfully everything is ticking along nicely!

volunteers demonstrating on first aid

The team met at 11am on Sunday to finalise plans for First Aid event occurring in Waya that day. Following lunch the volunteers who had trained in beads met with 5 ladies from the local community who are interested in learning how to make bead jewellery. Then, everyone packed up and headed to Waya to set up the church and also visit the local community to put out an invite to the event. The First Aid event was intended to educate farmers on how to treat basic and common wounds to enable them to continue work if they injured themselves. Subsequently, the topics covered were: heavy bleeding, nose bleeds, cuts and grazes, ‘stop, drop and roll’, burns, dog and snake bites, and epilepsy. These topics were broken into sessions, each hosted by 3 volunteers; one volunteer describing the accident and how to treat it, one volunteer acting as the casualty upon which first aid was administered, and one volunteer translating for the attendees. There was a good turn-out at the event, and the participants seemed to find it educational and useful. Due to a busy week, all had an early night before starting it all again next week!!!

Meghan and Christabel

Hello, Tilly and Esenam here! Tilly is a UK volunteer and Essie a Ghanaian volunteer from the Volta region! We will be writing the blog for this week, enjoy.

The week has been very busy as we had our Mid-Placement Review (MPR) at the end of the week so there was a lot preparation. The week started with volunteers teaching at Anfoe Junior high school, followed by Active Citizenship Day by Rahim and Sara on the topic of Globalization and environment. They spoke about 3 main subjects being water, climate change and renewable resources. There was a meeting with the local maize farmers where they filled out our baseline survey, for us to evaluate their progression and skills knowledge and their livelihood capacities.

Most of the team had an early football training session on Tuesday morning along with the team leaders and project co-coordinator, practicing for our match at the weekend! The maize team also had a visit to the farm of their chairman. Meghan and Essie were our team leaders for the day, they held our weekly team meeting where we discussed and confirmed plans for the weekend. The meeting was well organized and everyone was satisfied with decisions made within the meeting.

A training session was provided by Technical Officer George for the groundnut and vegetable groups. The kente group had a meeting with volunteers and Derick our co-coordinator to clear up some issues regarding group members and lessons. The rest of the meeting was spent filling out the baseline survey and Kitt, a UK volunteer, done some filming of our meeting for our midpoint review video. Later in the evening it was Rahim and Alex’s social held at their house, it was a bonfire night with lots of fun and interesting games. They served cooked maize, popcorn and a local drink called sobolo. It was a very nice social event and we were graced with the presence of our co-coordinator.

Groundnut and Maize groups woke up very early for a meeting in Waya with their farmers however none of them turned up. My culture day was delivered by Alberta a Ghanaian volunteer representing the Western region of Ghana. She gave interesting information and facts about the region and also spoke on the puberty rite and displayed local food which was mashed yam with 2 eggs. In the afternoon after lunch the whole team had a cleanup exercise at the blue house, preparing for our visitors at the weekend. The vegetable group went to the District Assembly with team leaders and co-coordinator to register the Waya vegetable group. In the evening a groundnut meeting was held in Anfoe where one of the farmers taught the group how to prepare a local snack called ‘dzowe’ which is made from groundnut and various spices.

On Friday a meeting was held with members of the Social Welfare Department from the district assembly, who are our project partners. We were told about the work that they have done and work they are planning to do in the future alongside us, it was an opportunity for us to find out specifics on what they do for the community and address any concerns and ask questions to find out if the work is in line with the work provided through Lattitude. Around midday the team left for MPR (midpoint review) at the Sky Plus hotel in Ho, the capital of the Volta region. The volunteers entered the premises where we were greeted by other volunteers from Abrobriano and Cape Coast. It was so lovely to see other friends and volunteers after 7 weeks. There was time for catching up and pool party after lunch! The rest of the night volunteers were able to do their own thing, we all sat down together beside the pool and with a spectacular view over the city of Ho for dinner. Saturday started with a scrumptious breakfast and a dip in the pool before starting our sessions for the day. Our team leaders held the first session on our journey so far with ICS. It was a very in depth and refreshing session. The rest of the sessions from Saturday to Sunday was for us to find out how the other projects have come along so far and their plans for the remaining time here in Ghana. It was fun and interesting to see what everyone had gotten up to in their projects the past 7 weeks. We were also given the opportunity to assess our team leaders, co-coordinators and our experience with ICS Lattitude so far.

Once our midpoint review had officially finished all teams set off on the journey back here to Adaklu Waya for them to see and experience life here in Ada! We first showed our guests around a few places in Waya before bringing them to our host homes in Anfoe where they’ll be dining and spending the night. We all went to Amuzu-Wembley, a little village next to Anfoe, for a football match where our team won against Cape Coast!! GO DREAM TEAM! The evening was spent at the blue house with lots of food on the barbeque, lots of drinks including local sobolo, popcorn and music all night! We played games and we won, again, at forming the best and quickest human pyramid. People stayed up late, till daybreak, socializing and having fun with fellow volunteers. The Ada girls prepared a mighty breakfast, whilst the boys were playing football, which cape coast lost again! Everyone enjoyed our breakfast of toasted omelette sandwiches, pancakes, tea and coffee! We were sad to say goodbye to everybody and tears were shed.

Overall we had a very busy but productive week, we are all feeling very refreshed and positive after MPR, seeing how much we have all accomplished and come so far in the past 7 weeks. It has left us feeling very good for the next 5 weeks to come and end our time here on a high!

LONG LIVE DREAM TEAM!

Love Tilly and Essie

The Adaklu Livelihood Project has really begun to pick up pace in week 6 with all volunteers working very hard. A number of us started the week teaching our assigned classes in Anfoe & Waya basic schools, which will continue up to 3 times throughout the week.
The group all came together later on Monday for our weekly Active Citizenship Day which this week concentrated on peace and conflict as presented by Chloe & Shawukiya. They touched on the definition and benefits of peace as well as causes of conflict. We were also able to learn a variety of interesting facts on the topic via the form of a quiz.
With our second event coming up our Planning & Logistics team met to start preparing for the event on Marketing & Branding which will be hosted in Waya later this cycle.
Each Monday the Maize team meet with the groups resource person, Mr Emmanuel, prior to the groups lesson. Today, the team prepared and delivered on the correct dosage of agro-chemicals.
Team leaders have also been working closely with community members interested in learning the skill of pastries. We are pleased that the decision has now been made for us to help these individuals register their group.
Tuesday is usually a free day for volunteers as we do not meet until late afternoon for our team meeting. This is to be lead by a different pair each week as part of the one-day team leader platform. During this meeting Monitoring and Evaluation announced results of the baseline survey conducted last week in Waya. We also received updates from each livelihood team with their past weeks activities. Following this, we discussed side projects as suggested by volunteers. One side project currently underway is First Aid training for group members as suggested by Kitt following a lesson on safety precautions on the farm.
On Wednesday, volunteers responsible for the Ground nut and Vegetable groups met with the agricultural extension officer for training on good agricultural practice, farm specifics. Kente team also met with their group of Kente weavers to discuss their goals and objectives for the rest of the cycle.
Every Wednesday evening, volunteers take turns to host social events, thanks to the kindness of our host families. This week was the turn of Meghan & Winnifred. Together we played some fun games, drank sobolo, then ate fresh fruit and lots of popcorn!
Thursday began with an early meeting in Waya with the Vegetable group. The team facilitated their second lesson, on tomatoes planting and seedlings.
Thursday’s are the day the team meets for My Culture Day. Amy Joan from Ghana, presented the history of the Central Region in beautiful clothing and shared with us all information on the tourist sites, festivals celebrated as well as sharing a local delicacy of Kenke & hot pepper with fish that she had prepared for us.

Maize team had their second meeting with the groups resource person for the training on the next lesson – good agricultural practice. The team has all been invited to Mr Emmanuel’s farm to assist with this topic which will be arranged over the next week.
Shortly after Maize team had finished their meeting, the Ground nut team met with the farming group to deliver their lesson on good agricultural practice.
A group of volunteers were up early Friday morning to visit the Ground nut farm belonging to the secretary of Anfoe Groundnut group. During the 30 minute walk the group passed a lot of other farms with varying crops. Once at the Ground nut farm, volunteers were shown how crops are planted manually with a Ho and how to weed. Many volunteers then helped to weed small sections of the farm before moving on to learn about how to tell the difference between red and white Ground nuts using the size of the plant and colour of leaves.

Later that day, volunteers responsible for the newly formed Ground nut group in Amuzudeve met with the farmers to present them their constitution. As a good will gesture, the group members gifted the team with a variety of food stuffs which was a gratefully received and most generous surprise.

Each Friday pairs of volunteers are given the opportunity to share with the group something they know, refered to as ‘KWIK’. This week Ruby and Christabel presented overcoming obstacles beginning with an obstacle course outside to energize the group before moving on to their presentation.
On Saturday, some volunteers woke up as early as 5am to jog to neighboring community, Waya. Following this there was a training session at Anfoe football pitch for an upcoming match. Boys and girls!
Although a social evening had been planned, this had to be cancelled due to a power cut, known as dumsor in Ghana.
We ended the week with the introduction to a second baseline survey. M&E met to discuss and later distribute the survey which focuses on the effectiveness of training provided to groups. Both Maize and Ground nut had meetings in Waya today so were able to start collecting information.

Week 6 has been both challenging and interesting for the entire team and we are all really excited about the work we are doing.

Thank you for reading and check back next week for more update.

Ruby and Rahim

Monday 26^th October - Monday morning began with Meghan and Amy’s turn to host their Active Citizen Day. Their topic was all about Water. Over their presentation they discussed water sanitation, pollution, sources, diseases and prevention, all led by a fantastic short drama in which Amy was diagnosed with diarrhoea. This was then followed by a short quiz discussing how much water is used domestically worldwide. The Maize group met the chief maize farmer, who gave them training on safe use of Agro-chemicals. After training was complete they then met with the rest of the maize farmers to pass on all that they had learnt.

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Tuesday 27^th October - The Groundnut team woke early for a 5am visit to a local ground nut farmer with the intention of seeing how his produce is farmed and what is entailed. Unfortunately due to a death in the community the farmer was unable to attend the meeting so it was postponed until later in the week.
This week’s Team Leader Platform was hosted by both Kitt and Amy who delivered a well informed and clear presentation. We recapped on the week’s events and got updates from all the farming groups and all the minor groups. We also discussed the Health and Safety group which we are hoping to establish within the next month which will look at training the local farmers and community in basic first aid and safety precautions.

Wednesday 28^th October - On Wednesday the Kente group met briefly outside their workplace to establish a meeting for next week. This would be a crucial meeting to determine the direction that the Kente group will be heading in, over the next few weeks and cycles to come.
This was followed by a social hosted by Ruby and Esinam at their home. The social took place outside where we played a variety of games, including “truth or dare” and “dance-offs” and had a variety of refreshments, including Fro-yo!
The evening was widely enjoyed by all and has left big shoes to fill for all those to follow!

Thursday 29^th October - The Groundnut Group again woke up early and tried to meet with the farmers for a tour of the farm, but unfortunately the local farmers failed to turn up. The Kente group had better luck and managed to meet with the Vegetable group in Waya at 8am for a fantastic presentation on vegetable cultivation and production.
This week’s My Culture Day was hosted by Meghan who talked about Ireland and N. Ireland. Her topic covered a range of different areas from the giants’ causeway myth to the partition of Ireland and the paramilitary groups. Needless to say, the UKVs were educated just as much as the ICVs were.
After the MCD we all headed outside and proceeded to weave a new net out of the plastic water sachets. This will serve as a new football net which will be Fifa regulation sized… 8ft tall!!!

Friday 30^th October - This time it was the media teams turn to wake up early. Their day started at 6:00am in Waya to film “A day in the life of a Maize farmer”. The team started by interviewing the farmer at home but then progressed to his farm of 6.5 acres. The farmer was very forthcoming with the interview so provided the media team with plenty of information to go through. We look forward to the edited video!
The Groundnut members visited Amuzudeve to see the local school and to talk with the local farmers there.
This weeks KWIK was hosted by myself (Matt) and Richard. As a change of pace we invited people to choose what they would like to do. As it was raining outside we offered people games inside or games outside. The choice was between Football rounders or Ludo and seemed to be an even split. The session went without a hitch, apart from Sammy slipping on the wet grass.

Sat 31^st October - On the Saturday we began the day by attending the Education fund event at Waya primary school. This event was to launch the new education fund across Adaklu and had many esteemed guests. Throughout the morning there were many speeches, dances and dramas performed by the local community. The volunteers all made a donation towards the Education fund on behalf of Lattitude.
Later that afternoon the UKV’s shared their culture day of Halloween by giving the ICV’s a brief history of its origin and a taste of how we celebrate it. This was coupled with a “Thriller” video, in which we enlisted the help of the local children to film a spoof Halloween video.

Sun 1^st November - In the morning the M&E team briefed the rest of the volunteers on the survey they would be carrying out later that day. The survey was to establish a baseline percentage of how many people within the community found the Social Welfare Department programmes useful. The team divided into four sections to tackle all areas of Waya and completed all 121 surveys well within the allotted time. Sunday evening was fairly uneventful as the community had another scheduled lights out.

Matt & Shawukiya

Blog Post – week 19^th October till 25^th – Kitt and Richard

This week we have been very busy here in Adaklu! On Monday morning volunteers continued to teach in both Adaklu Waya and Adaklu Anfoe in JHS and Primary. We are now three weeks into teaching and are really getting to know all our pupils and are getting stuck in with tricky subjects like Prime Numbers, Integers and statistics. We can see from previous weeks how much the students are starting to pick up from us especially the UK volunteers.

On Monday we also had Matt and Winnifred present the issue of Community Development to us in our Active Citizen’s Day (ACD). They started by defining development in general and then got the whole group talking about the pros and cons of community development and the ways in which we as a team can help the community develop in a sustainable way in Adaklu Waya and Adaklu Anfoe. Also on Monday we had an open registration event linked to our Group Awareness Event on the previous Sunday. We had 13 people turn up to register for groups, including Honey famers who are now up to the magic number of 6 and can start the process of writing up a constitution and then formally registering with the DA. We also had some Maize and Groundnut farmers who signed up to join the already registers groups, as well as a seamstress who will now need to find other people to join with her and form another group. Later in the evening it was Kitt’s Birthday Party! We had a lovely party complete with Cake, Music, Dancing and Sobolo! I turned the grand old age of 24, and am really glad to have spent the day with all my new found friends here in sunny Adaklu.

On Tuesday we had a team meeting, Alberta and Matt took on the Team Leader role for the meeting. The livelihood groups all presented a report on what they had done during the week and we planned out events for the week ahead.

Wednesday morning the Vegetable and Groundnut groups had a training with the Agric Extension Officer. He taught the groups about good management practice, and later in the week this knowledge was passed on to all the livelihood groups by the latitude volunteers in a number of training sessions. In the evening, we had our weekly social on this day, and this time it was Kitt and Alberta’s time to host. We played Musical Chairs and Tug of War – which was victoriously won by the Media team!

This Thursday we started cutting more water sachets to make some football nets out of for the local JHS School. We also fixed the Volleyball Net which the children of Adaklu Anfoe (and the Lattitude Volunteers) love playing with every evening. We also had a meeting on Thursday when the volunteers in charge of the Kente group took over the newly formed Waya Vegetable Group.

Kente Team Meeting Up with The Newly Formed Vegetable Group

On Thursday we also had a brilliant presentation from those volunteers who originate from the Volta region. They each came to present a little piece of their rich culture, and the whole group ended with a play about the local naming ceremony.

On Friday we had a Kwik (know what I know) session run by Winifred and Chloe. They taught us about sleep and the meanings and implications of dreams, then we all got a chance to read each other’s dreams- some of them were pretty surprising!

A volunteer Feeding a Monkey

Saturday we had our team building trip to Tafi atome Monkey Sanctuary and Wli Waterfalls both in the Volta Region. We had about a 40 minute walk through the forest to the waterfall, and when we got there all the UKVs and some of the ICVs had the chance to go swimming in the lovely warm water of the falls. The waterfall was so interesting we all lost track of time until it started to rain. We then had to drive back home over the mountains through a thunder storm in our trusty little mini-bus. By the time we got home 14 hours later, we were all too tired we had our supper and went straight to bed!

Finally this week on Sunday we had more livelihood meetings both in Anfoe and in Waya. We continued training on Record keeping and Management practices. We concluded the day with Richard’s Birthday Party. We all had the chance to request different songs to play and got even more cake and fizzy drinks!

Richard’s birthday party[/caption%

Hello, our names are Sara and Alberta. Alberta, being a Ghanaian volunteer, is from the Western region. Sara, a UK volunteer, is originally from Poland.

The volunteers have been divided into 4 teams, Planning And Logistics, Media, Safety and Security and Monitoring and Evaluation. We are both part of the planning team.

This is our third week here in Adaklu Waya and it’s certainly been very eventful. The team went to various schools to teach within Waya and Anfoe as usual. It has been announced that teaching will become optional as of next week as there are many other tasks that volunteers can do such as take up more farming groups or volunteer in the nursery. However this week we all finished our 3 designated weekly sessions.

Our team leaders Sammy and Kwosi (Matt) presented their active citizen day presentation (ACD) to us on the topic of governance and participation. This presentation was really insightful; you could certainly see how passionate they were on the topic. They described what the topic was about, mentioned the different governances in various countries and related it to the livelihood of the people here.

MCD’s are just one of several weekly presentations we have. Another session is called know what I know (KWIK). In this, two volunteers (one UK and one Ghanaian), are tasked with creating a presentation about something they have in common. This week, the two volunteers decided on the topic of laughter, the highlight of the session was when they made us do laughing yoga, in which everyone in the room started to fake laugh and ended up irrepressibly laughing at each other.

Every week, each UK volunteer and their counterpart get to do a social evening where we come up with games or activities at our home to entertain the group. This week it was mine (Sara’s) and Christabel’s social. We decided to do a quiz night with lollipops for prizes. The quiz was more difficult to write than we thought because of the different range of knowledge the UKVs and ICVs have. We ended up having 3 rounds, the topics being Ghana, animals and music. The social went well, unfortunately there was a blackout a couple of hours before it began, but we managed to use candles and glowsticks to light up the room and everyone had a great time!

Nana Kofi, the Lattitude country manager came to visit us on Thursday to check on the wellbeing of the volunteers as well as the state of the project; he also gave some words of advice to some of the volunteers.

As we are in the planning team we had a very busy week sorting out all the ins and outs of our first awareness-raising event on Sunday to raise awareness about the advantages of group formation. We worked closely with the media team as well as safety and security to make sure the event was well advertised as well as safe for everyone. We did various trips to Waya to put up posters, make public transmission announcements and ensure that all of the resources were available.

Saturday was a day packed with preparations for event. The whole team woke up early in the morning to go to the chief’s courtyard to set up. Getting resources for an event here is rather challenging, we borrowed marquees, tables and planks of wood from various members of the community. The plastic chairs were borrowed from the church, which thankfully was at a short walking distance from the event grounds. The whole team worked together to put up some marquees, tables and bring chairs, as well as to decorate the event with banners and bunting.

We had a couple of hours to relax then went back to Waya, the location of the event. Each volunteer had a task to do. Some were the MCs, some other took care of security, others were selected to sit at the stalls with the representatives, etc. From the start of the event we had to change the program around and improvise as it appeared a big storm was coming, it started to rain and there was a power cut which meant the microphone and music were no longer working. The planning team started to get a bit worried that the event would go downhill, yet thankfully the rain stopped rather quickly and the power came back on! Overall the event went very well, there were many talks from farmers, district assembly representatives and the queen mother, conveying the desired message. Some of the talks were a bit less audible from the lack of a microphone but all in all the right information was delivered. We also had many fun activities and games which had the audience laughing out loud at the contestants. Some of the volunteers joined in to participate in the dance competition and our team leader Matt shocked the audience with some amazing dance moves! The community members which attended were somewhat reserved, in that not many of them came up to the stalls to register for new groups, so our team improvised by walking around the audience enticing people to sign up. 26 new members showed interest in joining groups, and were all invited to a meeting at the Lattitude office the next day to discuss what opportunities we have for them.

When the event finished all of the volunteers were pleasantly surprised to see that a large amount of community members stayed to give us a hand taking down the marquees and clearing everything out. Even the old ladies and little kids were carrying chairs back to the church. Thanks to their help we were done very quickly and spent a long time dancing and playing with the children from the community.

In our time off we went for walks and to check out the stream in town. We also did group activities like playing Hot Seat which really helps break some of the ice between UK volunteers and in-country volunteers. Some of us went to the weekly market in Waya to by fruit and fabric. All the UK volunteers have now tailor made Ghanaian clothes! Overall we had a very productive and enjoyable week, can’t wait to see what we will achieve next week!