My Internship, and other things

Today marks FOUR WEEKS since my arrival in Ghana. It does NOT at all seem like I have been here that long. The time is just flying by. I still have a little over 3 months, but I can already tell I won't be ready to leave by then.

I started my internship this week! I met my boss last week but Monday was my first official day. I'm working at an NGO in Adenta (about 15-25 minutes from campus depending on traffic, so very manageable). The NGO is called Intervention Forum and does work on a variety of projects mostly in Adenta, but also the greater Accra area. They focus primarily on community health issues, particularly HIV/AIDS education and environmental and sanitation issues. It seems to me they try to work on pretty much any problem they witness in the community though, and have dealt with things in the past such as TB and other infectious diseases, rape, women's skills training and empowerment, child trafficking, and child labor. It's a VERY cool organization for me to be working with.

The office is small; my boss Nora is the director, and there are two other women who work there daily but are volunteers. Another woman comes in only on Fridays to volunteer. Additionally, there are 5 other University of Ghana students who are doing some sort of experiential learning/service as part of their degree, but they just started this week as well.

On Monday Nora went over HIV/AIDS education training with us and had us take a test just to make sure everybody was on the same page and we understand the issues. We'll be going to various schools and community groups to teach the information, so she needed to know we are well versed in the material. Ghana has about a 3% HIV prevalence rate, which for Africa is relatively low but is still considered a high rate overall. I was both impressed and surprised by what was (and was not) covered in the material. Ghana is an extremely extremely extremely Christian country (I will talk about this in another post because I have quite a lot to say about it). I was surprised that in some ways the material seemed to be very comprehensive. It is based on the ABC program: Abstinence, Be faithful, Condom use. I didn't really know what to expect, but I guess I just assumed that since much of the US is still teaching abstinence only, that might be the emphasis of the programs here. Everything was covered in terms of spreading HIV through blood transfusions, sharing needles, sharing razors; high risk behaviors; other STI's; proper male and female condom use. As I said, however, I was also a little bothered by some things that weren't included. Not once in the session, nor in any of the materials I was given, was there any mention of different kinds of sex (oral, anal), or different kinds of relationships (heterosexual, homosexual). I'm not entirely comfortable going into school classes or community groups and teaching HIV and other STI prevention without covering some of this information that can still be at-risk behavior. As I said, I realize much of this is not covered in programs even in the US, but Shaker always had very comprehensive sexual and reproductive health education, so I guess that's just what I'm used to and think is important. I figure people should be given all of the information and then be able to make decisions for themselves. I've talked to a few of my Ghanaian friends and my program director about these concerns, and they all recommended talking to my boss about it. I may be worrying needlessly, and she may be very receptive to including these things in the training we do. I guess I'll just have to summon the courage to bring it up next week!

I began another project this week at work. We went into Adenta Village and interviewed families of school dropouts to determine why some students weren't in school. There are child labor laws in Ghana, and international standards, but since so much of the economy in Ghana is informal, it's very difficult to keep many children from selling fruit or water in streetside stands during the day instead of going to classes. For many families, it's just a reality that they cannot afford for the students to be at school instead of working. So, we interviewed a few different children and their parents (if they were around) to figure out what some of the underlying problems are. I had to leave to get back for a lecture so I only did that for about an hour, but it was really fun just to interact with people in the community a little bit. It was obvious from everyone I talked to, and from stories my coworkers shared from other days this week, that the kids would rather be in school and their parents would rather have them there, but it's just not feasible. So, Intervention Forum's next big step is to figure out how to do some fundraising. (Story of all NGO's, right?) I can't even begin to imagine how that's going to work here. Before long I will begin investigating into grants and such. I've never written a grant proposal before though . . . so either I'll have to rely on somebody else to do it in the office, or I'll have to start figuring it out! It's definitely a skill I should probably start developing anyway so I may give it a shot. I'm not sure what kinds of projects we'll be doing next week . . . it seems like we kind of do things as they pop up. So, we'll see where this goes.

Tomorrow morning my program is taking us to the Cape Coast for the weekend. There, we'll visit a former slave castle (Ghana is one of the main places slaves were taken from Africa to the Americas). We're also going to see some sort of animal sanctuary, do a canopy walk, and eat lunch on Sunday above some lake filled with crocodiles! It should be an interesting weekend.

I just realized I don't think I ever wrote about my first program excursion. It was more of a fun trip than an educational one, but it was still cool. We went to Aburi Gardens and got to see all kinds of tropical plants and trees and such, and also went to a famous bead factory and wood carving village. The beads here are made out of recycled glass. We got to see the workers smashing old bottles into a fine powder that could be mixed to either make the beads themselves or paint for the beads. This region is also famous for wood carving, so we visited several shops to buy traditional wood things. I bought a kind of tripod-shaped thing that is three people intertwined with each other and means "unity." I also bought a jewelery box that sits on top of it (I had to put somewhere to put all the beads!)

OK I think that was an excessively long post, so I'll cut it off here. Next week I'll write about the slave castles, and about classes since I finally have my schedule locked down too.

I'm still working on figuring out how to get pictures up. I'll get them eventually!

Miss and love you all :) xoxoxo