We did see poverty. Education and Health care are not free in Ghana. Government schools cost about 40,000 cedis (the equivalent of £4) per term. When you consider that the minimum wage is an average of 5,500 cedis a day (55p) and nearly all families have many more than a single child, this equates to a large proportion of the income for a family. Hence not every child goes to school – you see many working, selling things on the streets- and those that do go are frequently sent home or “sacked” from school if they cannot afford the fees. Unfortunately, corporal punishment is very much in use and that means that when the children do return to school, they are likely to be caned so they can’t really win.
The hospitals operate on a cash and carry system, in other words “no cash, no carry.”
This is partly why when people get ill, they prefer to consult a traditional doctor who may give cheaper remedies but then if that does not work, they might go to a chemist, failing that and generally only as a last resort will they go to the hospital. Often by this time, the problem has got more serious – maybe resulting in an emergency operation, which increases the risk of death and the cost of the treatment becomes significantly higher than it might have been if they had come to the hospital in the first place. This means that people die needlessly from things that can be treated like appendicitis or hernias or in childbirth.

The people are extremely proud though and would rarely admit that they couldn’t afford, although on the other hand, many believe that the whites – English and Americans in particular – are the answer to all their problems. They are all desperate to get visas and move to London, where they believe they could tap into the gold-paved streets. What they don’t seem to realise is that it is their own land that is rich in so many ways and that there are many things we could learn from them and their own way of life.

My role as a volunteer was to offer myself as a teacher in the schools. As guests of the Archbishop of the Cape Coast diocese, we distributed ourselves among the Catholic schools in Dunkwa. I chose to teach English to the form one and two classes at the Girls Vocational School – where they learned the trades of dressmaking, hairdressing and catering. The sisters made us feel particularly welcome and it was a challenging though rewarding experience. When we were not teaching, we would often drop in to try our hands at tie dying, or to sample their wares -food practical days were especially popular!

I also taught French at the Boys and Mixed Junior Secondary schools, and I introduced the language at the Boys primary, which I felt was a real privilege and opportunity. At first, teaching had been quite a daunting prospect for me but it didn’t take long before I really started to enjoy my lessons and the children were generally enthusiastic too.
Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of my time in Ghana was seeing our project money put into action. We put a lot of money into the building of a kindergarten in Breman Asikuma; we also gave the equivalent of £1000 to the Vocational school. This was used to provide the plumbing for the new hostel for the girls. This is a huge project, however, which will need a lot more money before it can be used. We also gave some money to repair some of their sewing machines. The sisters sell machines at a reasonable price to girls who want to set up as a seamstress on leaving the school, and so they need to replenish their supply for the girls that are still learning.
We gave books to both the Boys and the Girls Junior Secondary schools, to add to their small libraries.