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Hear from a Volunteer: Declan’s 3 months in Ghana

Posted: May 7, 2020

It’s been another brilliant week here with GVI Ghana. Since being here I’ve met many amazing people, tried a lot of different and new things, and it’s been such a great experience. I spent the first couple of days helping at our partner schools. I got to go around the class and spend more time getting to know the students this week. After delivering English lessons, we ran an after school boys club to see how it might work in the long term. We arranged a game of musical chairs for the boys and they absolutely loved it. By the end of the game they were just singing and dancing, so it certainly looked like they were enjoying themselves. Two of the other volunteers did the girls after school club in which I’m told there was a sneaky game of Simon Says.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to return to the school for the rest of the week as all the schools had to close, due to the current Coronavirus pandemic. To ensure we could still support the community, the GVI team worked with the volunteers to design a presentation on Coronavirus which we could deliver to the teachers at local schools, including what the symptoms are and what preventative measures could be taken. The school staff were then invited to GVI base in small controlled groups to hear the presentation and ask questions. It was great to be able to be flexible and respond to the urgent needs of the community in this way.

Women working on their jewellery making course at GVI base
Beautiful Wakanda Beach!

We also worked quickly to adjust the content and deliver a Coronavirus presentation to the local women who GVI supports through women’s empowerment courses. For the rest of this week, I’ve been helping Sam – GVI’s Project Coordinator – with this Women’s Empowerment work. The women have been very successful, we’ve had quite a lot of women attending lessons this week which is fantastic. On Friday, Naa – GVI’s House Manager & Coordinator -organised a beading course for the women and they made some really beautiful bracelets and necklaces, which they can make in greater numbers to sell to earn additional income.

The weekend was really chilled and relaxing. Sam took me and another volunteer, Scout, on a hike up to Bortianor which was such a beautiful place and had such great tropical scenery. On Sunday we went for a walk across Wakanda beach which was very peaceful.

Loving it!

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