We arrived at the last of our Child Rights Sensitizations (bottom still hurting from the insane moto-journey, I'm not sure when I'll be able to sit down again!) to discover that here there are eight communities, spread out over huge kilometres of land, and not one single school. Not one. We are here to talk about the child's right to education, so it's utterly ironic- how are we supposed to encourage parents to send their children to school, when there are no s...

It may have come almost a month late but it was absolutely worth the wait! This week Bawku West schools celebrated the Day of the African Child. The official date is the 16th June, which has been set on the world calendar to commemorate the young school children in South Africa who rose up and marched to protest for their right to education. Sadly many of them were killed on that day, and so it is an important day in remembrance of the sad sacrifice they made i...

The baby theme continues! I was thrilled when I received an invite from David, a colleague that I have met through my work here, we have been teasing him for weeks about his new born baby having no name, and finally the ceremony is here and I am invited. Going there alone, I'm faced with two challenges. Number one - what time do I go? The invite says 9am, but does that actually mean 9am? It also say 'prompt', but really how 'prompt' are we talking? I ha...

There are two things you need to ride on the back of my colleague James' moto. The first is a good set of strong hands, to hold on for dear life. The second is a big fat bottom, to protect you from the bumps and potholes ahead! Seeing as I have neither, I was in for a bit of a shock whizzing out to far-out communities at 70km per hour up and down dirt track, through rivers and over hills, some 50km away from town! The only good thing about going so fast was ...

After visiting Em in June, she asked me to write an entry for her blog. here goes .... Having been lucky enough to visit a lot of far flung and distinctive places all over the world, I have somehow never quite made it to sub-Saharan Africa before. So with Em off to Ghana for a year, it seemed the perfect opportunity to explore a new place with a lovely (and knowledgeable!) friend. Stepping off my connection to Tamale, about half-way up Ghana and as far as ...