Results Cost Sharing project- second update

As most of you know, I came home with Job one month ago :)

What a wonderful and learnful experience it was! I’m so happy and grateful I had the chance to have this adventure and the chance to broaden my life experiences.

Since I’m back the next adventure has started: graduating as a social worker. The plan is to graduate in the end of May/June 2017. This is one of the reasons why I haven’t been writing an update earlier (busy busy busy with school). The other reason is that I have to acclimate and getting uses to be back in the Netherlands. This last task also is going quite well. Still I miss Ghana and I already look forward to go back but for now my focus is completely on passing my graduating assignments.

Enough about my challenges! What I want to share with you are the first results of the cost sharing project!

A big thank you for all the people who donated! And a big thank you for the people who executed the project (my colleagues in Ghana).

When I visited Tamale with Job, we witnessed the first community receiving the materials. The materials bought with money from the parents and money what CPYWD supported. It was a thankful experience.

We all felt the collaboration was a success and the parents, teachers, children, my colleagues and I are  thankful for this new collaboration and the support given by CPYWD through donations of mine and your network. The children in this community now got lessons with new books (Creative arts, creative activities, mathematics 1&2) and have access to water because of a small water container.

At this moment the parents of 5 other communities has taken the chance and took their responsibilities back by collecting money for school related materials for their children. I’ll receive the pictures and report about the presentation of the materials  to the other communities I couldn’t  witness soon, from my colleagues in Ghana.

The parents are enthusiastic and want to execute this new cost sharing policy from now on, CPYWD is having a different role then before (now it is also focusing on giving back responsibilities, supporting instead of taking over and give people the chance to make own choices), you contributed with donations and spreading the idea and I have had a life experience I will never forget and I gained a lot of experiences and knowledge I’ll use in my role as a Social Worker.

Another very important thing I want to share is the following: to run this cost sharing project we need people who visit the communities to monitor and also (when the parents give the amount they have to pay) buy and bringing the materials to the schools. The people who execute these tasks in the field are my lovely colleagues and my director.

Without them the whole project will collapse. The wonderful thing of the staff of my NGO  (CPYWD) is that they all work voluntarily with a small allowance of 100 Ghana Cedi’s per month. For our perspective: that’s equal to €21,-. This means they get €1,07 for a full work day. They have to use this for transport to get to the office, for lunch and soap for washing clothes (being on the motorbike makes you look like a carrot, because of all the orange dust). This amount is very little, also for people in Ghana.

I have a request for people who donated money after 25th of January 2017: I  want to use a part of your donation to give the staff a small (extra) allowance. In this case my colleagues also feel appreciated for all the work they do and it is more likely they will continue what they do and the project will be executed with care. After I saw and experienced all the hard work they do, I think they deserve some extra allowances.

If you want to have specifications or if you have any questions about this, please let me know. I try to also inform people who are not likely to read this blog by email. I will make a plan of action for this side destination of the donations, if you want I can share this document with you.

For now I want to wish you all a good week with sunny moments, happy smiles and the sight of blossom and flowers popping up everywhere.