New location
Sisterhood is growing!
When we launched the first meeting of an after-school club for girls a few years ago, we never imagined it would be such a hit and the answer to so many pent-up needs in the school community. For the past 3 years, we have been conducting meetings for young teenage girls in rural areas in Ghana. The meetings are held in cooperation with local schools.
We are keen to see that there is already something like a girls' club in the school, then our job is to give it a structure, to support it substantively, practically. We work one-on-one with the coordinator and bring some freshness to the existing form. We conduct business meetings, dance workshops, have educational tours to national heritage sites, teach about personal hygiene, mental health, incorporate sex education. We touch on local challenges faced by the community, and our flagship project is the DUAFE conference for girls in which participants meet members of other projects in different locations for the first time and we teach them about the power of sisterhood.
We are keen to see that there is already something like a girls' club in the school, then our job is to give it a structure, to support it substantively, practically. We work one-on-one with the coordinator and bring some freshness to the existing form. We conduct business meetings, dance workshops, have educational tours to national heritage sites, teach about personal hygiene, mental health, incorporate sex education. We touch on local challenges faced by the community, and our flagship project is the DUAFE conference for girls in which participants meet members of other projects in different locations for the first time and we teach them about the power of sisterhood.
In February, we reached two new locations: Edumanu and Kwesi Ansah Basic School.
Rural schools are often left to fend for themselves, located so far from the main road, any center of life, that they can rarely count on any support. As a Start from Ghana team, we rely on just such locations whenever transportation to such places is possible. Although there are usually many challenges involved, working with such communities is incredibly rewarding.
At the end of the month we had quite a surprise at Korczak kindergarten. We were visited by a group of guests from Poland who were touring Ghana. It is always an incredible joy for our preschoolers when guests show up because then they can present a special welcome dance and hear numerous stories from the farthest corners of the world. There was also a tour of the village and learning about the local traditions of the Duaga people. Such visits are a good lesson for both sides, speaking first of all about cultural sensitivity. We thank our guests for their visit, we hope they will remember us fondly.
