Travel and See

Post by: Ayisha Seidu 

For me Ghana is a country rich with culture and wonderful people, this may be a biased opinion as it is my home country, but in my experience of traveling throughout the Gold Coast the learning never ends. However from what my UK companions have told me this is very different from the snapshot of Ghana they would have seen. When asking any British 18-25 year old about what snapshots they may have since, this could range from the short life-span Ebola had in Ghana, the One Direction Comic Relief music video or even an Azonto song or two. Yet for me, my snapshot of Ghana would be the hospitality… and I’ll explain why.

Snapshot 1: Host Homes

In my host home the members of the house always make sure that we are happy and also provide us our needs. Even though in the most northern regions the issue of scarce water exists, our host family makes sure that we always have enough. In fact I cherish my host home some much that even on our days away from work, I rarely like going out from the host home. I can never forget my host home. This experience would paint the most beautiful picture of the hospitable nature of the community. I urgently encourage anybody who wants to come, to come and experience this. I even more urgently would encourage everybody to travel, because most definitely when you travel, you will learn more.

Snapshot 2: The Communities

My travels with ICS International Service have brought me to Tolon, to work with NFED to improve the capabilities of their income generation groups (IGGs). The NFED have formed literacy classes for various communities throughout Tolon district as a part of the national functional literacy program, at the completion of these, they form an income generation group and our cohort of volunteers have to pleasure to work with a few. This has open the opportunity to us to learn from and also exchange knowledge with not only the IGGs but the entire community. The Non-Formal Education Division is helping to improve opportunities for the IGGs, who all whom have their individual aims and objectives to achieve. I hope this work will have even a minuscule of an impact on poverty in Ghana, on poverty for one person, or one group.

The benefits of travel stretches far beyond that of the individual, it can also have a positive impact on the nation in general, notably enriching the local economy thorough local spending and the tax generated from various tourists centres. Whilst travelling the traveler can exchange skills and knowledge with the people they meet along the way and perhaps make a positive impact on the places that they had visited in additional to acquiring new knowledge for themselves.

Travel and see… TRUST ME... this will help you to learn so much about the world, about different people from different parts of the globe. I have travelled to many places but my travel to Tolon community has helped me to learn new things altogether. The people of Tolon community are hospitable in a way that I can’t explain. When we came to Tolon, they were open hearted and gave the International Service-NFED partnership an official welcome to the community [a durbar]. But that was only the beginning…