The sea air is getting to me, lots of time for thinking back on my placement, and getting to grips with what I've done, what I've achieved and what I wish I'd done differently (almost nothing except slowed down, stayed longer, packed lighter!).

As a volunteer it can be really hard to see what an impact our presence is having, and how exactly we are making a difference. But a year is a long time, and enough to hopefully, in some way, make a difference, I really hope I have! I wanted to write down some of my achievements as I see them through my eyes...

1. Learning to ride a motorbike, and using it to get out to some of the most rural communities in Bawku West;

2. Learning the local language, and using it to engage with rural communities where many people understand very little English;

3. Turning my placement from a vague list of random things to do into a fully fledged placement with clear objectives and valuable, achievable outcomes and impact;

4. Building so many positive and fruitful relationships with so many different government departments, NGO's, CBO's, schools and communities;

5. Becoming a close-knit member of the World Vision staff team, helping them when they were suffering under huge amounts of stress and pressure on a daily basis;

6. Running a 4 day HIV/AIDS clinic for over 140 children and teachers

7. Linking the Hope Givers project with a team of students at the University of Manchester to boost the development of this growing grass roots initiative;

8. Supporting communities to get more children back into school;

9. Working with Abigail and the District Health staff to encourage safe motherhood practices in rural communities and bring down maternal mortality and child mortality rates;

10. Supporting Ayuuba (a teenage boy who recently lost his father and who was heading off the rails) to try to turn his life around (in some ways this totally failed but I still believe in 'every small step'...one day this boy will hopefully sort his life out!);

11. Helping communities to turn harmful cultural practices on their head and give their women and children better opportunities in life;

12. Encouraging children to respect people with disabilities and promote education for them;

13. Identifying and interviewing some of the most vulnerable children for a television campaign to increase sponsorships;

14. Engaging communities on their responsibilities as beneficiaries of World Vision support;

15. Taking a leading role in a large relief distribution effort, getting relief items to households in vulnerable communities affected by disastrous floods;

16. Sticking it out when times were tough;

17. Training as many people as I could (formally and informally!) on advocacy;

18. Helping initiatives to source much needed funding;

19. Establishing peace clubs in rural communities;

20. Being there for the team when the heat was on!

With love from Ghana,

Em

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