Back to work
Trip Start
Mar 27, 2008
1
17
21
Trip End
Oct 01, 2008
Cape Coast,
Ghana
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Youth Alive also had its lunch launch on 17 July at the Centre for National Culture in Cape Coast. A full day of speeches and 'cultural displays' were organised by Sossah and the marketing team, with local representatives attending from political parties, the German Development Agency and CHRAJ. The turnout was below average, but overall the day went well. Several journalists appeared later in the day and everyone tucked happily into the buffet lunch. I was pleased to get really positive feedback about Youth Alive! from all people I met at the party, and I had the feeling that while small the newspaper was still an achievement for Abusua and for me personally.
With Isaac away I have agreed to organise the next youth engagement workshop for this coming Saturday. I have decided that we need to get the participants out of the classroom and into the 'field', so to say. So we are breaking them up into three practical modules, each 1 ½ hours long. The first is on how to write a lead, the second is on photography and the third is on presentation skills. Marc's new neighbour is a professional photographer from the UK, so I am hoping to convince him to help facilitate the workshop on Saturday. I will be giving the presentation skills module and plan on having the participants give a 5 minute presentation that I will record on my camera, and then play back to the group on the computer. Should be a pretty high-tech day if the gods play ball and provide us with electricity.
It was a working weekend for me last weekend, with Mr Aggrey and me giving a presentation on human rights to the local chapter of the Ghana Red Cross on Saturday afternoon. The group was young and enthusiastic, but to my chagrin was most concerned about discussing whether woman deserved to be raped if they dress provocatively. It seemed that several people in the group had a bone to pick with each other, and by the end I was a bit worried that they had asked us to come speak in order to mediate a private matter between the members. But to my relief, as we wrapped up the discussion they dispersed without pressing the matter much further.
That night we had a party for Koji's birthday and Alex's departure. In celebration we bought a goat from our village and slaughtered and BBQ'd it. Some of Marc's programme participants joined us at the house and we rocked out to music from my new I-pod and ate Sossah's fab cooking. The next day I moved one of the sofas out onto the veranda and had a lovely lazy Sunday consisting of reading my book, watching Rita eat bugs and clean herself and listening to the singing and drumming wafting in from the local Apostolic Church service. There was sunshine and a cool breeze and I could think of nothing nicer to do on a Sunday in Cape Coast than sit at home on the veranda.
