Welcome to town!               By Angela Bettany

Two weeks ago 12 strangers rocked up in the “tiny village of Sandema” and now we are TEAM LIFE. Drawn from all over Ghana and the United Kingdom we are diverse in background but united in mission – to empower and equip the disabled communities of the upper East.

One busy week in the office strategising and we have already met some amazing people including – two Disabled People’s Organisations, members of the district assembly, sports coaches, some of the best teachers from all over the region at National Teachers Day (particularly exciting as we some to run a two day inclusive sports workshops for teachers in this cohort), outstanding individuals such as a blind gentleman who sits on the main road and weaves the most beautiful mats and beds, also a young wheelchair user that runs two orphanages across the region! To top it all off we have been officially welcomed to work in the area by the paramount Chief and he even allowed us to have a team photo:

 Tuesday was the first of our inclusive girls clubs aimed at integrating young disabled girls into a safe group which hosts guest speakers and allows open talks on gender issues and topics that affect young women. The club held in a nearby community called Wiaga and is the pilot project that we also hope to reinstate in Sandema this cohort!

On top of that we have liaised with a local radio station and secured a regular slot discussing disability issues live to the entire Builsa district! Our first live session led by Shannon, Abdullah and Lydia goes out tonight to over 1000 listeners!

Having met some amazing members of the disabled community we will be researching some practical skills to bind them together to create an income generating co-operative with the hope to sell some of their products at the fair trade festival being headed up by our teammates in Bolgatanga.

It’s been a busy few weeks as you can tell but we’re all psyched to get this show on the road and impact as deeply into the community as physically possible! The key to all our projects is sustainability – knowing we are only here for another solid 2 months it is essential to practically equip and empower the community to continue our activities long after we have gone home! No small task, but bring it on!!

The Stars of Sandema

The Stars of Sandema

During our stay here of approximately 4 weeks, we have seen many stars. By that we are inferring to both the giant hot balls of gases you see on the ceiling of the night sky and the great people that make up this city. Sandema is a small village that inhabits many good people and souls who labour day and night to earn their daily bread.

Being avid travellers, we have learnt that a great city is not made up of the quality of tourist attractions but rather the people that live in it. The amount of joy and love the people show to one another is ethereal to look at. As a team our core aim is to integrate and raise awareness for the disabled people in the district to ensure they are acknowledged as important citizens.

We hope to achieve these goals through the inclusion of children living with disabilities into sporting activities in schools, by raising the awareness level of people as to how to care for disabled people through sensitisations programmes and by ICT workshops. All in all the prospect of the project is in goods hands and we are all in awe about kick starting the project and despite the fact it is our fourth week in this community, everyday feels like our first.

Through some of the people that we have met here, we have been inspired to make more of an effort to help others.  One of these people is Charles, a blind man who makes a living by weaving. We met him through a meeting we had with the local DPOs and couldn’t take my eyes off at what he was doing.

Even for a person with full vision, weaving is not easy to learn and takes time to master. Now take a blind man, it becomes more of a challenge to learn the skill yet this man does it wherever he is so that he can make a living for his family. This has taught us that no matter what your limitations are you can do anything. With practice; you can overcome any limitation and do the seemingly impossible!

Another person who we have met with is Yaw. He invited Team LIFE to view his kindergarten that he runs, for young children, in a rural village where access to education for the local youngsters was non-existent! What struck us even more is his answer when one of us asked him why does he do what he does. His response was ‘I want these young children to develop a strong foundation in reading as I believe in order to progress to higher education one must be proficient in understanding what they are reading and through my kindergarten I hope to see these young bucks become masters of reading’.

 Despite having a disability, Yaws’ actions are having and will continue to have big impact on his community. Through this, we see that we all should have some sort of responsibility of further bettering our community and no matter your limitations, every one can make a positive impact, be it small or big.

Through meeting these people we have seen that no matter how mountainous a challenge may seem if you want to do it then you can, if you put your mind to it and persevere. In the future we hope to capture many more valuable accounts of people over the upcoming weeks and put them on paper. One way we wish to achieve this is by starting a ‘Humans of Sandema’ project whereby a picture of a person is taken and we note down a life experience of there’s from which people can take inspiration. Without further ado, we believe that the title at first may have been deceiving so it only makes sense that this blog ends with a picture of the stars that was captured on a night not too long ago from today.

Girl Child

Girl Child

“A girl should be two things: who and what she wants”

Coco Chanel

When you think of a woman, what are the words that come to your mind?

Elegance, beauty, class, modesty or maybe a hardcore feminist?  

                                 

Now I would like to put you in the lives of an African woman nay a Ghanaian woman, what springs to mind? I will save you from pondering on the thought and tell you about the life of many women here in Ghana.

A woman is not always treated as who she wants to be and in many cases is deprived of her rights to go to school, speak when men speak and the saddest being the treatment of widows after the death of their husbands.  What usually comes after the death of her husband is an accusation of murder and what follows can be described as being one of the most horrific things i have heard.  The woman is sometimes made to sleep beside his lifeless body on the same bed, walk bare footed around the community, shave her head completely, and when the body of her husband is washed she is made to drink the water. This is done with the mindset that if she has killed her husband she will also die. She goes through a lot; many become depressed and sometimes even die from this process not because they committed murder. I would like to clarify this does not happen to all widows in Ghana but to large enough number that it requires a mention.

The gender inequalities do not stop there but extend to the education of the girl children in Ghana with a proportionally higher number of boys being sent to school than girls.  This is most likely because of the traditional roles men and women take in Ghanaian society, with girls taking a domestic role in the home. Prior to school, the girl child is expected to sweep the house, mop the floor and perform many domestic chores. The consequences of this is that she has to wake up earlier than her brothers at home which would mean that she is considerably more tired during the day or does not even get a chance to go to school.

As part of the “Life project” we hold a girls club in Wiaga, a more rural setting compared to Sandema. The first time we visited the girls club we were astounded by the sheer amount of girls who had come to take part in the club. Initially the first game we played was to get the girls to introduce themselves to each other and ourselves, but it also got us to hear their ambitions.  The most common ambition we heard was “I want to be a medical doctor” followed quickly by a round of applause. It was awe inspiring hearing the level of support they had for each other, but one has to wonder will they get this opportunity. We took the opportunity to ask the girls what they wanted to learn and we got personal hygiene, child labour and human rights. Although we hoped to get more topics from the girls it was our first time meeting and we would consider it a very successful one.           

Overall we are looking forward to our future girls clubs, not because we think in the short time we have we can entirely change the life of the girl child of Wiaga but because we believe that we can make some difference to it.

                                                                                             Nyasha UKV & Godiva ICV

We would like to give a gracious thank you to all the women in the world, as we know that wherever you are in this world you have faced inequality because of your gender. Therefore I would like to reiterate Hillary Clinton’s words in 1998 “Women’s rights are Human rights”.
                             

                                    

Abdul-Latif Alhassan 

“Thoughts without action is empty and actions without thought is blind”

Hi, I am Latif, Ghanaian Team Leader for the ICS LIFE Project in Sandema. I probably have the longest name on ICS but you can keep it as short as Alhassan Lanbong Nyela Kpalapuka Abdul-Kubli Voo bii Koko (Tobiko Gbain) Captain Hereditch Abdul-Latif and as long as Latif or Abdul, that’s cool!!   

Serious reggae business is my thing as it gives me inspiration and positive vibes every time and if you’ve got the latest action movies in town, come let’s huff and puff in my lovely Host Home in Sandema after work or over the weekend (when I'm not travelling to explore beautiful Ghana and meeting new people).  John Perkin’s “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” is my favourite book, all the controversy lovers should grab a copy of it, you will enjoy it! Blue is the colour, football is the game!!! 

Leaving a positive lasting impact in the lives of people wherever I find myself is what drives me in life and hopefully the LIFE Project offers me the opportunity to develop my leadership skills, contribute significantly in improving the living conditions and recognition of people living with disabilities and ultimately becoming a robust active global citizen. Championing the cause of the vulnerable in society and taking on new challenges is my passion.   

Appearance is not reality and as a reflector, my favourite quotation is “Thoughts without action is empty and actions without thought is blind” by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.  These few days in Sandema have been fantastic, never mind the Accra-like Dumsor style here.  

Local Integration for Empowerment (LIFE), you matter, everyone matters, respect for diversity, such should be Life!!!!  

Carlyn Miller

“If you are crazy enough to think you can change the world, you should definitely try.”

Hello! I’m Carlyn, the UK Team Leader for the LIFE Project. You might remember me from the first blog over 10 weeks ago now with cohort 12 who achieved so much and have all now moved on to new and exciting things. The first week without them was really strange, I sat in the office alone, listening to our favourite songs and crying onto my mango. But last Sunday, I was given a brand spanking new team and my tears have dried ;) Over the next 9 weeks, we’re going to continue to raise awareness of disability rights through sensitisations, workshops, research and teacher trainings. The time is going to fly by but I know that cohort 13 are going to make my last 9 weeks in this beautiful country entirely worthwhile and enjoyable.  

Favourite Song: Pink Floyd, “Wish You Were Here,” as it reminds me of a really happy time in my life.  

Favourite Movie: Airplane (obviously) 

Favourite Quote: “If you are crazy enough to think you can change the world, you should definitely try.”  

Life aspiration: I don’t really have a single life goal, I’m 25 and still don’t know ‘what I want to do when I grow up.’ But I guess for me as long as your life is devoted to making someone else’s life better then it’s worth living. After all, what we do for ourselves dies with us, what we do for others remains – or something like that.  

PEACE 

Anaab Godiva

"No matter where you come from your dreams are valid" Lupito Nyongo

My aspiration is to meet the UN millennium goal on eradicating poverty and literacy. I believe with this aspiration I will be able to also do my best  my goal as well as theme LIFEs goals  

I hope to achieve if not all but a few of my aspirations like helping girls know how to keep themselves clean during menstruation and sex education. Also hope to reduce the stigmatisation on people living disabilities.  

My fav  song is "I win" by Sinach.  My fav movie is Empire.  

That's me Godiva Anaab mostly called  DyVaH OR toy.  

IN LIFE EVERYTHING IS NECESSARY. 

Ailiś Deans

 “Everything happens for a reason”

Hi! My name is Ailiś and I am from Scotland in the UK. I still can’t believe that I am actually in Ghana and so far away from home; however I am loving life in Sandema! So far I have drunk water from a plastic bag, suffered what feels like a million power cuts and eaten most meals without a knife and fork. But I am enjoying all of these experiences nonetheless. As a typical Scot the things that I am missing most from home are IRN BRU and square sausage (and we have only been here just over a week!). 

The main things I want out of life are to be happy, healthy and have a loving family. But in the mean time I would like to finish the degree I am doing then study Law with Human Rights, in order to hopefully work as a Human Rights lawyer for the United Nations. My favorite bands are Snow Patrol and Coldplay – I couldn’t chose between them – and my favorite movie is Schindler’s List. We have a saying in my family that is “Everything happens for a reason”, and no matter what we go through there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel. At the end of my time here in Sandema I hope to have made an impact on the lives of the people we work with and know that we have helped to make a difference within the local community. 

Benny Barnabas

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow, Learn as if you were to live forever” – Mahatma Gandhi

HI! My name is Benny. I'm from a town called Sutton Coldfield in the UK and I am currently at University studying Law.We arrived in Sandema last week and it has been a wonderful experience, from the people to the new foods it has been enjoyable. The heat and the power cuts we could do without but its all part of life here. 

Song - Could You be Loved – Bob Marley 

Quote - “Live as if you were to die tomorrow, Learn as if you were to live forever” – Mahatma Gandhi 

Movie – Home Alone (1999) 

Aspiration and end goals are normally realised when you enter university, for many it’s a childhood dream that has become a possibility for me however it’s neither. In the UK we pick our degrees from the A-levels we do and so I chose Law partially for the minimal interest I have, which is required to go through the endless hours of reading and secondly for the benefits that can be garnered in the future. But my true end goal is wherever I end up in this path I’ve chosen to be the best and to be in a position where I am able to give back both to my family and community.

Mohammed Mohib

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

Hi I am Muhib, I am Ghanaian from tamale in the northern region of Ghana. As ICS volunteers for international service, I always have the thought that, no human being is a repository of knowledge and wisdom and that every human being no matter your tribe, colour, culture, etc.  Has a fair share of knowledge and wisdom. But the problem sometimes is that, we fail to recognise some of these unique values possessed in us. This sometimes stems out of the fact that there is no one to facilitate our learning and understanding, so as to create our awareness and recognition of these admirable unique values to enable them manifest in us. 

Another interesting fact which I strongly uphold is the notion that, life is all about making safe choices and taking advantage of the wonderful opportunities that comes on our ways. The people we meet, places we have travelled to, observations made and lessons learned, all in whole tend to form an invaluable part of our life achievements and/or documentaries of which we can better prepare ourselves to assume any responsibility and to better adjust to any situation in the near future. 

As an ICS volunteer, I share a lot of aspirations in life, which happens to appear in my dreams most often. I always uphold to these particular axioms or beliefs which guides my aspirations in life and which are: Never settle for anything less, my mind is my powerful tool and my failures are my lessons. My aspirations for joining ICS as a volunteer is to build on my confidence and presentation skills not withholding the important aspect of helping others. But more generally, my aspiration in life is to be a CEO of a multinational financial institution and to be great contributor in providing solutions to economic problems. 

The golden Rule of management happens to be my favourite quote in life which postulates that; “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. And my favourite poem happens to be an African poem written by David Diop and that is “your presence”. Coming to my favourite songs, I love this reggae music by lucky Dube with the name “Different colours”. 

In conclusion, we as human beings are social beings that need love, care, support, protection, motivation, and morale. This is to tell us that, in trying to impact positively into a person life, we do not need to possess all the worldly riches before doing so. Just a word of wisdom and you will be doing a great service to somebody’s life. Challenge yourself now to change your world. Thank you.!!! 

Nyasha Makiyi

“Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon.” Paul Bradnt   

My aspiration is to become a Senior Peace Envoy for the United Nations explains my favourite quote.   

I don’t have a favourite movie but I am a fan of almost all the Ridley Scott movies. When it comes to music I will listen to whatever sounds good to my ears. During my volunteering position at LIFE I hope I become more confident to travel by myself and meet new people. 

Al - Hassan "Palasco" Adamah

"Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own cause" Robert Greene

I am Al-hassan Adamah the people who know me call me Palasco…meaning greatness... I have a knack for perfection and in everything I do I always strive for perfection. My major goal in life is to achieve equality for all and empower people to take up challenges and use their potential to the fullest.   

I enjoy all kind of music that helps me meditate and my favourite movie is 24 by Kiefer Sutherland.  

Being born into this wonderful world is my greatest joy and waking up every day and putting joy and smiles into people’s faces and seeing my family happy is what I aspire to achieve every day.  

Being a member of life is great for me as a person. Life is an avenue where I can get to explore, interact and help people develop their dreams and also take charge of their life by actually building their capacity and empowering them in actualizing their dreams.   

Robert Greene: Use the wisdom, knowledge, and legwork of other people to further your own cause. Not only will such assistance save you valuable time and energy, it will give you an aura of efficiency and speed. In the end your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered. Never do yourself what others can do for you. 

Carly Waddell

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time”

Hey :). I’m carly, a UK volunteer from Scotland and newly found vegetarian, participating in the LIFE project in Sandema. The food so far has not really agreed with me, therefore I have declared myself a vegetarian. I am really missing the food from home as well; things like potato scones, cheese and ham toasties!! While participating in the LIFE project I hope to raise more awareness of persons living with disability in Sandema and encourage inclusion in mainstream schools. My goal in life is to finish my studies in sports therapy. Once I have completed the LIFE project and head back home to my community, I want to start up a variety of sports classes for girls as there is not a great deal of sports for girls in the community.   

My favourite song is “See you Again” by Wiz Khalifa and my all-time favourite film is White Chicks - it’s hilarious. My favourite quote is: “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time”

Azalekor Ruth

‘Aspire to achieve what you inspire’

Hi my name is Azalekor Ruth and my friends normally call me big brain. My favourite quote is ‘Aspire to achieve what you inspire’. I like the poem ‘If I rule the world’ written by my tutor. The song which I listen to the most is ‘Life is short’ because it reminds me that life is really short. My favourite movie is Marlin  

  

I want to help educate people in deprived communities on the importance of girl child education and help eradicate poverty in other to make them have a sense of belonging through this programme.  

  

I want to develop upon the skills I already have and learn more during my time on the LIFE project. 

Mohammad Abdul Raafay

"Since we cannot change reality, let us change the eyes which see reality"  

My name is Raafay, but you can call me Raf.  

Inception and all other movies by Christopher Nolan. My goal in life is to one day become a physicist and a photographer, as the prospect of devoting my efforts in pushing the boundaries of human knowledge excites and sparks my curiosity. 

This is probably a long-term goal, however currently I’ve become interested in photography. This has led me down an unexpected path in meeting lots of new people and hearing amazing stories from them.  Hopefully one day one of my pictures will make it to the front page of the TIME magazine!   

 Al - Hassan Sumaya

"Destiny can only be delayed but cannot be denied"

Hello, I am Sumaya, ICV LIFE Project in Sandema.  

I like listening to cool music and watching of Nigerian movies. My aspiration in life is to be a recognised person in my society and a role model in future. My favourite quotes are (a) Destiny can only be delayed but cannot be denied (b) Life has twists and turns. What I want to achieve on the LIFE Project is that I want to develop useful personal skills, learn more about people with disability and also built good personal relationship with the community and my team as well.