Edu Afrique

Hello all, I went to a local SDA church in the capital of Ghana today and what I saw prompted me to write this letter to the leaders of the adventist church worldwide:   A message for the leaders of the Worldwide   SDA Church Dear Church leaders, My name is Doreen Adwoa Agyapomaa, a seventh day Adventist with membership at Preston in Melbourne Australia . I traveled to Ghana just over a month ago to undertake some community development and health promotion activities. Since my arrival, I have been extremely dismayed at the poor sanitation and hygiene levels in the country. I write to enlist your help in spreading the news of personal, as well as corporate responsibility for ensuring that sanitation facilities are available at our places of worship. These places of sanitation should be as clean and well kept as the men, women and children of Ghana . I write to you because I just got back from visiting a church in Ashongman Estate in Accra , where the sanitation si

Record turnout for anti-mosquito workshop 22.12.12 Hello everyone, I had one of the best experiences of delivering these workshops yesterday. We had around 300 people at the workshop and everyone was really engaged with the topic. There has been quite a strong campaign in the past to reduce the health costs of malaria, so i think EduAfrique got the benefit of the previous publicity. video demo of neem cream preparation as mosquito repellent EduAfrique also demonstrated how to preserve tomatoes to reduce post harvest loss.

I think we're pretty much settled on the EduAfrique Ghana field team now.The team consists of Bright and Mr Bediako, both council members in Asamang. Mr Bediako is very enthusiastic about public education and he's a joy to work with. Prior to the theft of my computer and camera, I was working with a different team but i no longer feel comfortable with them. I am praying for a female team member who will be as enthusiastic as Mr Bediako. image on top - from the left: a friend of Bright, Mr Bediako and Bright

Blog entry 16.12.12 Workshop no. 3 We had our very 1 st evening workshop attended by around 60 people. Data collected from ½ of the participants indicated that around 40% of the participants had toilets in their homes – the remainder use 1 of 4 public toilets in the village. We covered the importance of sanitation, how to construct a basic no flush toilet for the home and how to make an electricity free cooling system to store fruit and vegetables (around 60% of the participants had refrigerators in their home).

Go Easy on the Trees Hi all, We did an early morning workshop (8am) on improving the design of the traditional stove today and it was attended by around 30 people. We had a couple of attendees who were visiting from neighbouring towns and they asked for photocopies to take home with them so they can share with their community members. For the health component, we covered the prevention and treatment of cholera.  I’ve been advised by the attendees to conduct future workshops at night, when most people would be back from their farms. Note taken.

9.12.12 rocket stove demo Everywhere I go, i see people cooking on really inefficient stoves made with  just 3 rocks and tons of firewood. To reduce the inefficient of that system, we'll be teaching people to build their very own rocket stoves. This is one that i built myself just to get familiar with the construction and to iron out any difficulties before the demonstrations. The bricks are relatively cheap so people should be able to afford it.

7.12.12 Election day in Ghana Ghana is holding it's 4-yearly elections today and everywhere you go there are queues of people waiting to vote. Elections here are so charged with emotion that the citizens are quite worried at the possibility of violence and even war. To reduce any possibility for violence, all the TV stations have been broadcasting really corny messages and songs about the importance for peace, love and harmony. The peace propaganda seems to be working so far but I'm a little worried now....

5.12.12 EduAfrique going on Ghana Radio Given the lack of public sanitation facilities in Ghana, EduAfrique is going on radio to speak out against this shameful situation. The radio station is called Nhyira fm and I went in today to find out the costs involved. I will pass on the details once it's finalised. I asked to use the bathroom when i went in to the office and i was shown another disgusting back-of -the -building slot. ......I get it now, for my own sanity, I will refrain from asking for public toilets. I don't think that I've mentioned this, but data collected at the first workshop at Asamang SDA showed that only 20% of the kids had toilets in their homes - the rest of them rely on public facilities. This situation is probably not so bad in the villages where people are not so crowded, but in the cities, if the same percentage of people have personal toilets, then this is a public health disaster!

3.12.12 Where do ppl sh*t around here?! I am in Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana and I am amazed that i cannot find a single decent public toilet to use. I went to Barclays bank earlier in the day and needed to use the bathroom but i was informed that they did not have any for their customers. I asked my traveling companion to take me to a decent public toilet and after walking for close to 30min, he took me down some convoluted ally where we met a group of men. My companion  whispered into the ear of one of the men and the man took me to a flush toilet that was no longer working. I'll spare you the details but lets just say that it is not a memory i want to hold on to for very long.

30.11.12 Law breaking law enforcers I went to report the theft of my computer, camera and personal goods to the police today. I was lucky enough that one of the policemen offered to come to my house to inspect the scene of the crime. To get to my house, i had to pay for  the transportation cost. After inspecting my house, the officer asked his protege to take a photo for their records - I was asked again to pay a substantial amount for this 'service'. Incidentally, i needed to use the bathroom while i was waiting at the station and i was offered just the ground behind the station as the toilet! When i refused this, they took me to their toilet but i was unable to use it because it was absolutely DISGUSTING! It took 3 days for me to recover from that experience. I am even more committed now to raise the flag for adequate sanitation in Ghana but i can see that the task is enormous :(