Sensitising Santech

Fantastic disability awareness sensitization in Sandema Technical Senior High School carried out by  International service LIFE project volunteers.

The purpose of this sensitization was to educate students on  disability rights ,causes of disability,and the need to integrate persons with disability in to the mainstream society.
We  arrived in the school around 3pm but the students were still taking their lunch in the dinning hall that was supposed to be used for the sensitization,as a result of this we started the programmed around 4pm.

With support of the hardworking staff of the school, the students attend the programmed massively.
We started by introducing our selves to the students and staff present.The Ghanaian In-Country Team Leader Mr Alhassan Abdul Latif gave a short debrief of International Service Ghana and the reason why the LIFE project volunteers visit the school
We planned to  deliver topics like definitions of disability, causes of disability, differences between physical and mental disability, disability is not inability and the need to integrate persons with disability in to the mainstream society but due to energy crises in Ghana we couldn't complete all.
Fortunately, the school's cultural group were able to perform without electricity which was a source of great enjoyment and cultural cohesion for all.

The sensitization that did occur was a huge success and many of the students and staff  (over 1,200) provided volunteers with positive feedback about the session.
BY ABDULLAH  MUSAH

Cycling and Chieftancy

On the way to our office, there is a hill. To be perfectly honest, hill is an overstatement. It is an incline with a corner at the top which prevents you seeing what is further along the road. This incline, as small as it may seem, causes us some problems. Even the fittest among us, tired on a Friday morning from a week of hard work, struggle up it sometimes. When your bike tyres are a bit flat, sometimes you might even need to get off and walk. But we all make it to work every day. We overcome this obstacle, just as we overcome obstacles in implementing our services.

Sometimes, the barriers can be quite obvious. For example, when we were conducting community research, I headed out with my work partner Abdullah only to encounter families who do not speak English, when neither of us can speak enough Buli to effectively communicate... a slight issue, I would say. But we find ways to work around these obstacles (in this case, one lady who spoke English accompanied us to the next three houses because she knew we would have trouble communicating). We pump up the tyres and make it over the crest of the hill.

Occasionally, an obstacle can open new doors. A few weeks ago, we were summoned to meet the Paramount Chief of Sandema. His messenger said that the Chief wanted us to go into the local schools and run ICT lessons. This sent us all into a bit of a panic. How can we find time to do this in our already overfull schedule? Would this be sustainable? Is this within our project boundaries? Would International Service be happy with us to use our time in this manner?

We came to the conclusion that we would not be able to appease the Chief, but this posed its own challenge. You cannot just say no to the Chief. It is difficult to explain how influential and important this gentleman is to UK readers, but everything we do is done by his grace. If he took a dislike to us, it would seriously impact on our work. So we had to find a positive way to contribute to the community to please the Chief, whilst keeping to our project brief.

Fortunately, we already had an inclusive ICT workshop for children designed, which has to date held three sessions each of which has been hugely successful with between 30 and 40 children attending. (Check out the last blog post for a bit more information). We made the decision to offer a teacher training in ICT, in order to have maximum impact in the community. By teaching teachers, we would be influencing all of their students and future students in a much more beneficial and effective way than individually intervening at each school.

Meeting the Chief was an experience that I will not be quick to forget. After the formalities, including being made to wait to demonstrate the Chief’s importance, the Chief was able to explain exactly what he wanted us to do. He had recently toured some of the schools in Sandema, and claimed that they had laptops packed away in boxes rather than in use because no-one knew how to turn them on. This brought home the reality to us that effective aid is not just in donating items, but in training people. This technology was useless without people who knew how to use it. The Chief was impressed with our description of the inclusive ICT workshops, (he stated that we must have been telepathic to have already planned his wishes) and greatly facilitated the organisation of the teacher training day by arranging a meeting for us with the director of the Ghana Education Service in Sandema, immediately!

So something that we saw as an obstacle actually brought us to an incredibly positive day, which took place yesterday. 15 teachers attended, who were introduced to computers, key skills in using Word, Excel, the internet and e-mails, and we discussed ways of integrating ICT into other subjects. On the back of this, and the continuing success of the inclusive ICT workshops, the volunteers are really pleased with the positive impact we have already had. With seven weeks gone, we are well on our way up the hill, but it will require all of our energy, teamwork, and problem solving skills to reach the crest and appreciate the full view of LIFE in Sandema.

Lydia

The LIFE Project Unloaded

Hello from Sandema! Cohort 14, the project well on its way to sustainable greatness, is officially half way through its time in Ghana. The weeks are flying in but we have achieved a tremendous amount. We run an inclusive girls club in a rural community called Wiaga. This club focuses on many issues that impact young girls around the world. So far we have covered puberty, sexual health, disability awareness and female genital mutilation. Our purpose is not only to plan these sessions but to find and integrate girls with disabilities in them. This project is crucial to our development mission but the lack of girls with disabilities living in Wiaga has prevented us from integrating them into the club. In order to make this project sustainable we aim to train local Ghanaian women and provide them with a curriculum to ensure the continuation of girls club sessions without the future assistance of International Service.

The team has also revived Sandema’s girls club, a massive success! Its first session saw over 100 girls pile in, two of which were girls with disabilities and another two who were young carers. We hope to run interviews to find a girls club president in the next week and institute sustainability from the offset. We have also started an inclusive ICT club in Sandema, which is co- run by LIFE team members and Daniel and Paul two members of Sandema’s Disabled People’s Organisation (DPO). The ICT club has been a triumph for cohort 14. People with disabilities have been involved at every stage, from the planning to the presenting. Moreover, our first session attracted a number of children with disabilities making it a fully integrated program.

Further, we have run two extremely powerful senior high school sensitisations, which raise awareness of disability, its causes and its impact. The first sensitisation was wicked! We took a PA system and a DJ (the BEST decision we have made), Ghanaians love to dance and senior high school students are no exception to the rule. We had Mr Bob a Wiaga DPO member do a question and answer section and tell the students his story as a person with a disability. Whilst in general the students had positive attitudes to disability, they were utterly shocked that people with disabilities could do the same as people without and sometimes more. This speech had a very strong impact on the students and challenged their pre-conceived ideas of disability.

Our second sensitisation was completely different but equally successful. It was beautifully chaotic- we presented to over 1000 students which led to a very interactive delivery. Our session was accompanied by the school’s cultural group, which was a fantastic experience. Sadly, ‘dumsor’ (lights out) occurred half way through our sensitisation and prevented us from continuing due to the large audience. However, the aspects we did cover had an immediate impact, educating the students on the definitions of disability and its causes.

It has been a very busy 6 weeks for the LIFE team and the pace is ever increasing! We will have a number of exciting developments to share in the upcoming weeks.