Hello!
So, although I had planned to avoid it, here I am with a blog. What can I say, I certainly held out as long as I could...but my impending trip to Ghana seems to have been the clincher.
This is, therefore, the theme of the blog - my time in Ghana. I will be interning with the Garu Community Based Rehabilitation Program in the Upper East Region of Ghana in West Africa. If you do a Google Maps search for Bawku, Ghana, the map brings up this town as well as Garu to the South (searching for Garu itself doesn't work).
Basically, the program provides vocational skills training to children and adults with differing physical abilities, and I believe other marginalized peoples; for example those with HIV/AIDS, and *maybe* women accused of witchcraft, although there is another centre for them in the town of Gambaga. Anyway, the CBR program does stuff like inclusive education, as well as skills like looming, shoe-making, and teaching things like farming by touch for people with visual impairment. Of course I'll know and understand more when I get there.
I'll be interning under the Presbyterian Church in Canada (PCC) in partnership with the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG), all funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). I'm there to, as I understand it, do advocacy, workshops and assessments - however it doesn't seem very set it stone, which is fine by me, I'll do anything!
I leave this Monday, August 20th (!!!), arriving in Accra at 8pm on the 21st...we then, I think, (we being the program director John who will be meeting me and I) will spend the night there, then maybe fly up to the town of Tamale in the middle of the country, then drive up to Garu.
I will be coming back March 14th, 2008.
So, this is it! My understanding is that I will have internet access there, so I will post as often as I can, and try to put up pictures if I'm able. Please don't hesitate to write me, because even if I'm not on enough to write long responses, I'm sure I'll still get on to read them now and again, and very much appreciate them!
Finally, my mailing address is:
Garu CBR
Box 93
Garu-Bawku
U.E.R., Ghana
Now, this is the address for the CBR program, but as far as I know it is the mailing address to use for me as well.
Well - here I go!
-Carole :)
