Today we were celebrating two things; Marianne and Lisa's second day in Ghana, and the crazy happy celebrations of 'Barka Sala' (also known as Eid!). I had noticed the excitement building up around town over the last few days, and could almost feel the intense yet calm mix of emotions generated in my muslim friends as they entered the last few days of fasting. It seems to me a bit like holding your breath underwater for so long and then suddenly coming up for a...

What can I say...they've only been here 24 hours and already the girls have travelled the whole length of the country from Accra to way-out Zebilla (via plane, tro-tro-insane and all kinds of automobile) weaving their way through a whole mix of emotions along the way...there's been smiles and laughter, confusion and chaos, shock, awe and fear! I don't think the girls really know what to make of Ghana after their first few hours... I'm just hoping they'll still b...

The last few weeks have been another whirlwind. I was thinking of how on earth to write about all the different things that I have done, and figured the best way was by emotion. In the last however many days I have felt... EXCITED - about a new aspect of my volunteering finally taking off! With a surprisingly super-motivated Ghanaian colleague by my side, I managed to meet with about 10 different NGO's in the district, the first steps in setting up a netw...

Another interesting area of work I am involved in is supporting people living with HIV and AIDS. HIV and AIDS is still a big issue in Ghana, the prevalence rates are lower than many other West African countries but it is still a crisis here and has numerous negative effects on individuals, families, communities and society. Many of the World Vision sponsored children in this district will be affected in some way, they may know a family member or relative who is...

A few weeks ago I was asked to support my colleague to deliver some training on Child Protection, a key element of their programme seeing as children are at the centre of everything World Vision does. The training was suggested to me months back, but because of the huge workload of the Sponsorship Officer, it has been postponed a number of times, until the staff realised that it was actually getting to the point where we couldn't delay any longer; the audi...