Loughborough University graduate, Claire Cummings aged 21 and from Merseyside, set off to take part in BUNAC’s Volunteer Ghana programme in February. Claire will be sending in regular web diaries based on her experiences in Ghana.
1st May
Work
Work continued on the children’s profiles and stories this week. Carly and I are making good progress but it is proving to be a time-consuming task as we now have 40 children in need of sponsorship!
This week Carly and I accompanied our co-ordinator, Mike to Mampong, where we visited a baby’s home and an orphanage. While we were there we interacted with the staff, collected information about the places and took photographs. We then used this information to compile a report about the two places to be used to inform potential and future volunteers about the places. This was a really interesting task and of course it was lovely seeing the children and babies and interacting with them!
This week also saw the start of our VCT pilot scheme in our local area. Yaw, our host father and the director of Light for Children, had had the idea to work with local apprentices and encourage them to test for HIV. The aim is to try and reduce the stigma surrounding the test, encourage people to know their status and to take to the correct steps to stay healthy once they know the result. We began by talking to a group of local hairdressers at their salon. We talked to them about HIV, told them the facts about the virus, how to avoid it and all the advantages of knowing their status. They responded really well and they all said they would go and test. We were all really pleased with the result. Through the week we went to three more shops and did the same talk. In all we got forty people to sign up for the test. An amazing result considering the local AIDS clinic usually only has a handful of people testing each month!
Accra
At the weekend Carly, Ciara and I headed to Accra to meet our fellow volunteer Melissa. Melissa had been studying at the university in Accra but had spent three months working for Light for Children; her time in Ghana was coming to an end so we went to say our goodbyes! We partied in Accra on Friday and even made the fatal mistake of doing karaoke! Then on Saturday we headed to Kokrobite, a beach resort about an hour from Accra, and enjoyed some chilled out reggae music on the beach that night before having to say our final goodbyes to Melissa on Sunday morning. It was hard saying goodbye and we returned to Kumasi on a sad note.
VCT scheme
After our weekend in Accra we continued to work on the VCT scheme. Carly, Yaw and I went back to all the hairdressing shops we had visited the previous week to do follow ups. We found that at the first salon we had visited all the girls had gone to test, which was an incredible result. They had all tested negative and were really pleased that they had gone to test, and were now planning to adopt behaviours to keep themselves safe. At the other three salons the girls hadn’t all had time to go yet but were all planning to go this week. The result so far was very pleasing and encouraging.
Socialisation meeting
This weekend saw our final socialisation meeting with the Light for Children kids. It was a very busy meeting as we had to get any information we still needed for the children’s profiles and stories, as well as finding out directions to each child’s house to enable us to conduct home visits. After finishing all the admin work and checking each child’s weight and progress it was time for lunch…then time for play! It was so nice getting to play with the kids even though they run rings round us! Before we left they thought it would be fun to join together and jump on us and tickle us! It was so hard saying bye to them and their parents, they are all amazing kids and it was heartbreaking leaving them!
After the meeting we met with our Ghanaian friends and had some drinks and a dance to wind down after a very busy day! On the Sunday we all hit the pool again for some relaxation and sunbathing! Bliss…