A kind donor gave us £50 to “spend on something useful” when in Ghana. £50 converts to 489 Ghanaian Cedi – which is a lot of money! Wanting to spend the money wisely we asked the village what would be useful. 

Maternity Clinic

The maternity clinic asked for a new ceiling fan for the delivery room, which until now didn’t have one – and it gets hot in there! The clinic is part of the Dzogbedze Community Health Service and supports pre & postnatal women as well as during childbirth. When buying the fan in Kpando we told the store owner what it was for and she discounted it to 280 cedi (£28.62) Midwife Anita, Nurse Doreen & Baby Karen were very grateful. 

Primary School

Another request came from the primary school. They needed exercise books and mathematics sets. School is free in Ghana but children must provide their own books and equipment, which not all can afford. At the China Mall in Accra we bought: 

• 40x exercise books
• 3x mathematics sets
• 100x sticks of chalk 
• 4x alphabet & numbers wall posters

All of this totalled 109 cedi (£11.14) and will go a long way in supporting the children who cannot afford their own school supplies. The teachers were also grateful for the additions to their classrooms. 

Toilets

In 2019 we worked with the Alavanyo Dzogbedze community to build a toilet block. Three years on it is still in full use. The cleaning of the toilets is done by Janet, who lives closest to them. The remaining 100 cedi was spent on replenishing the cleaning supplies. Janet specifically asked for a new standing brush which cost 20 cedi (£2.04) and we had enough left for two big bottles of bleach. 

Thank you

As you can see this generous donation has gone a really long way in supporting women in labour, children, teachers, Janet and the whole community. 

Thank you to our generous Ghanaian Sister for this gift of £50 and thank you to everyone who has made a donation or is considering one in the future. Whatever you are able to donate, however often, makes a real difference to people’s lives.

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While visiting our projects we heard of a fire at a local school –  EP Technical Vocational Institute in Alavanyo Kpeme. 

Thankfully the students were on vacation at the time so no one was hurt. But one of the dormitories was badly affected. Before the boys went on holiday they put all of their possessions into boxes, along with their mattress, and piled them into the dormitory for safe keeping. 

An electrical fault led to the dormitory burning down

Schools are free in Ghana but students must bring their own mattresses, school uniform, books, etc. All of these have been burnt in the fire – only a few bits and pieces are salvagable. 

The boys in this dormitory are second & third years (aged 15-17.) If they cannot replace their belongings they will be unable to return to school and finish their education. 

The school have completed an immediate needs assessment and found that 195 mattresses are needed for the boys. 

Each mattress costs the equivalent of £31.04

The school reached out to us, and other local NGOs to support. So far we have bought & delivered eight mattresses so eight boys now have a bed to sleep on. We would love to be able to replace more mattresses as soon as possible to help the students get back to their studies. 

If you would like to help then please donate today https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/dormitoryfire

Charlotte, a seamstress from Alavanyo ,is hard at work making these beautiful bags for us to sell. As well as generating an income for the charity it provides Charlotte with work, helping her look after her family. Watch this space for our Etsy shop where we will showcase all of the bags and other items we’ll be bringing back in June.

Home Economics teacher, Florence Kumah, is overjoyed with the sewing machines for her class. Jobyco worked their wonders and the drum and the machines arrived safe and secure. Clemence handed them over to Florence at the school with some pupils in attendance. They are now using them in their lessons. Once again thanks to Margaret for donating not only the machines but bobbins, threads and needles. In fact almost everything that the pupils need to get started on their learning curve.
Alyrene, one of the trustees, is visiting the projects later this month and will hopefully get some photos and quotes from the children as to how they are using them.

It all goes to show that items we have that we no longer use can have a whole new life somewhere. If you have some useful but unused items you think might be of use to someone in the Volta region use the contact page to get in touch. Alyrene might be able to take it with her when she goes.

I was telling our friend Kay about how Florence was finding it difficult to teach machine sewing with a single broken sewing machine and she said “I think I know some one who can help.” A couple of weeks later she turns up with four sewing machines from her sister, Margaret. The machines are in excellent working order and came with their instruction books and lots of supplies: threads, spare feet, bobbins etc. etc.

The next problem to solve was how to transport them to Florence’s school. With Clemence Kitsi’s help we found a shipping company in Luton. They could supply a drum and then collect it and deliver it not just to Accra but directly to Alavanyo village. Jobyco efficiently handles all the shipping and paperwork with consummate ease.

So on Friday 25th March 2022 the four sewing machines securely packed into a shipping drum were loaded onto a van to be transported at the start of their journey to Florence Kumah to help her teach Home Economics at Alavanyo Junior Secondary school. I’ll let you know when they arrive.

The cost of the drum was £50 and it will be put to good use when it is emptied, and the cost of transporting it was £90 If you would like to help fund future shipments to the Volta region please click on the donate button.

Florence is a dedicated and wonderful teacher. She teaches home economics in the Junior Secondary School in Alavanyo.
But she has a problem.

So Florence has to teach sewing theoretically. Her pupils can tell you the names of all of the parts of the machine but can’t use it to make anything. Why? Well look at the sewing machine she is trying to use. It is broken beyond repair of even the most skilled mechanic and they have tried.

She needs your help.

I recently had my sewing machine serviced by Geoff Ives and he has offered to service any machines we can get for Florence’s school for free.

We not only need some sewing machines but also the funds to send them to Ghana. I have found a shipping company that could deliver them to Alavanyo which costs £140 per 220l drum (including the cost of the drum). That would hold at least two machines.
If you would like to help with providing a sewing machine please contact us.
If you would like to help funding the transportation please click on the donate button below or this sentence.

Please help Florence and the hundreds of pupils she will teach to learn this skill to help them make clothes for themselves and their siblings.

Alyrene and myself went to Ghana from the 28th November to the 5th December.
Lots of PCR tests before during and after but it was worth it.

An amazing welcome at all of the current and past projects with constructive discussion with the builders and users of the toilets and libraries.
I think the best way for you to see what we did is visit Polarsteps, an incredibly useful piece of software allowing you to see and read what we did during the visit. It shows not only visiting all of the past, current and future projects but visiting friends and places I first went to in 1967.
In case you can’t visit it below are some photographs showing some of the highlights.
I am still surprised it was only a week we seemed to cram in so much.
Many thanks to our hosts particularly Clemence Kitsi, our project manager and friend who makes all of the arrangements so effortlessly fitting us in with his schedule as an Assemblyman for the local council (equivalent to a UK District Councillor but with many more pulls on his time from his constituents).

To listen to this blog please click on the start arrow below

A huge donation from the Green Hall Foundation means clean water for a village.

We have just been informed that we have been given a very generous donation from the Trustees of the Green Hall Foundation. This means that we can get started on the project so that people no longer have to walk over a kilometer to scoop water out of a muddy stream for their use. The timing is fantastic too as Alyrene and Adrian are going to visit the projects next week and can help start the works whilst they are there. Watch this space for updates next week.

September 1967

In September 1967 I was on a plane to Ghana and so was Heather but we didn’t know each other. We were going to volunteer with VSO.
I was posted to St Mary’s Junior Seminary in Lolobi Kumasi, Heather went to Bishop Herman College in Kpandu about 50km away. We met and travelled to Timbuktu together in the Easter holiday. We returned to the UK, as an item, in the July and were married in 1970.

September 1972

In 1972 we went to Nigeria for four years. We worked in Mubi Teacher Training College in the North East State. Heather gathered material for her book Growing up in the Mandara Mountains when we were there.

December 1979

In 1979 we went to Botswana for about seven years. I worked for the Ministry of Education and Heather did various jobs including journalism. Heather has written Coming of Age in Botswana which describes our life there.
The African continent kept calling and we worked briefly in Kenya, South Sudan and Ethiopia. Heather worked on educational books for many different countries throughout Africa.

June 2009

In 2009 Alyrene pointed out a project with VOLU in Tafi Atome in the Volta region very close to where we had met. I went and worked on the project. But time and money ran out before the community toilet block was finished. The next year I fundraised enough to finish the project and returned to Tafi. I was again working with VOLU and particularly with Clemence Kitsi a volunteer builder, we completed the building.

2018 – 2019

In 2018 Clemence was asked by the Village Development Committee of Alavanyo Dzobedze if a communal toilet could be built there. So he contacted us. We fundraised again and the block was started, again working with VOLU. In 2019 Myself, Heather and Alyrene went out to help with it.

2020 – Current day

We realised that it would be better if we worked as a registered charity and in 2020 Community Action Ghana was incorporated as a UK charity. Charity number 1188867. Myself – Adrian, Heather and Alyrene are the three trustees.

We are now working on another toilet block in Alavanyo Agome. After sucessfully renovating libraries in Kpeve and Tafi are now in the process of working with renovating libraries in Alavanyou Wudidi and Hohoe Wegbe.
We have had donations from a Fair trade shop in Hamlyn Germany, schools in New Zealand and Germany, and my local garage to help with the projects. The New Zealand school’s most recent donation paid for a survey for a borehole to provide clean water for the community of Gbedema Kofi. We still need to raise the money to make this project a reality.

All this takes money and donations are always greatfully received. Please dig deep to help us help these communities help themselves.

Heather’s Books