Touching lives with personal development: the road is International Service

By Abubakari Ibrahim

I have always had this one dream. A dream that looks like a mirage, a goal that looks unachievable, a road that looks impassable: to have an opportunity to make a positive impact on the lives of the vulnerable, the marginalized and women. In order to realise my dream, I decided to volunteer in development projects. I started searching, from one charity organization to another, day by day but to no avail. I began to ask myself over and over again; have I picked the wrong dream? If I could borrow the slogan of the Ghana football giants, Accra Hearts of Oak: “that never say die until the bones are rotting”. I would throw my hands up in despair but I knew I must keep on searching.

One Tuesday afternoon, after lunch, I was reading my book underneath a tree in my house when I suddenly became exhausted. I decided to go to Facebook to relax and chat with my friends. On my wall I saw an advert which said: “Are you interested in volunteering with volunteers from the UK? If your answer is yes then please follow the link below to download the form". I immediately clicked on the link and went to through to a website to read more about it. I was surprised to find that the programme described on the website met exactly the requirements that I was yearning for and, I hoped, would fulfill my dream. I quickly filled the form and attended the assessment day, where I was successful and selected for the programme with ICS and International Service, their charity partner here in Ghana.

Training we delivered to Dundo on record keeping. It's very difficult to train women on complicated subjects, especially those that involve literacy skills, when the women are illiterate. To overcome this we included activities and role plays in our training session to energise the women and help them relate the information to their lives. The picture here shows myself and women from the IGG acting out a role play. The central woman is acting as the Treasurer, I am the Secretary and the other two women have been accused of not paying their monthly contribution. The role play shows how useful it is to have records to clear up these sorts of issues.

I was posted to work on a project in Tolon, which is a small village about 45 minutes away from Tamale in the Northern Region of Ghana. Our project partner is Non-Formal Education Division (NFED), a government department that works in rural communities to run literacy classes for young people and adults who have not received formal education or did not have the opportunity to complete their education. The livelihood project that I was specifically posted to is in the village of Dundo, with the Bangsim Viella Income Generating Group (IGG). Our project plan was to train the women on how to become a cooperative (a cooperative being a group of individuals with a common interest who voluntarily come together to pool their resources in order to improve their economic well-being). The first training was on cooperatives and included the definition, benefits and requirements for registration. At the end of the first training session, which I delivered together with my community pair, I was surprised to hear the treasurer discussing with the Magaziya (the chair of the group) on how they can mobilize the GHC200 registration fee and start the process right away. Is my dream of making positive impact on the lives of these women coming to be fulfilled? Their desire to become cooperative kept on increasing each time we delivered our training sessions. I can’t wait to see the certificate of Bangsim Viella women’s group as a cooperative!

Someone may ask, have you achieved the personal development goal you want to achieve? Improving my confidence in public speaking and within a team were my personal goals before I joined ICS. I am a shy boy naturally and so I find it difficult to speak in public or large groups. This goal seemed very difficult to achieve but as I said earlier never say die…

Speaking the English language in the presence of people who are born with it, or if you like with people who have the language as their mother tongue wouldn’t be easy. As determined as I am to develop my public speaking skills, I pushed myself to contribute as much as possible when we are preparing training manuals or discussing work in the office. My confidence also started developing when we started training the IGGs.

They say it can take only one straw to break a camel's back. So, to break my camel's back, I organized and presented a lecture on plastic waste management, with my roommate, to hundreds of students at the Tolon Senior High School (pictured on the right). The programme went really well and I was surprised after the programme when a colleague came to me and said "ei IB I never knew you are such a good public speaker".

I had the opportunity to also present a radio program at the Simli Radio, as well as the awareness raising on how to become a cooperative at the local market at Katinga. By pushing myself out of my comfort zone and getting involved in as much public speaking as possible, I have already achieved the goal set for myself before the programme even ends.

All the above goals have been achieved a result of the team work we put up for the programme. The team has bonded really well and are superb and this has motivated us to put up our best for the collective interest of the IGGs and each other. 

Let me end by expressing my profound gratitude for the opportunity given me. I say Ayi koooo, Mboo, taali, Naawun ni sab laaara for making my dream come to reality.

Human Capability: A Key To Sustainable Development

 By Suale Yakubu

What ensures that development is sustainable? Is it providing people with the right tools or information to enable change in their life? Or is it helping a person to identify and make conscious decisions on how to make the most out of their own potential? The concept of human capabilities and sustainable development troubled me until I joined the ICS / International Service programme.

The International Service programme has taught me that you shouldn't go into a community and assume to know what they need, rather you should identify a community’s needs before going in to assist them to find lasting solutions. For example, we may think that a lack of water is a severe problem for some communities; however, that community may actually find that what is most challenging is they do not have a place to collectively produce or process their product. This has taught me the importance of going into projects with an open mind, completing a full needs assessment before beginning any work and to be willing to listen to the community rather than pressing my own opinions or preconceptions.

I have also realised from the programme that every person has their own unique characteristics and capabilities within his or her self and what one may find difficult is the easiest thing to someone else. By providing the resources and training to individuals in the communities, they can utilise their own skills and capabilities to see a way for themselves to enable change. In this way, enabling local people to lead their own development is the best option in ensuring sustainable development.

I have been placed to work with an income generating group (BEHIGU TAGYA) in Dimab Yepala, a village in the Tolon District of Northern Ghana, to train them on how to form a cooperative. The women I work with face many problems such as financial management, record keeping and water shortage. I begun wondering about these issues and pondered over the identified development issues and how to find solutions to their needs. It would be simple for me to go to the IGG and tell them that I can correct their records and finances but when I leave, how would they learn to do these things themselves? And even if I taught them how to manage their finances and keep records, how can I ensure that they retain this knowledge when most of the women are illiterate?

Working with my community to capture data on their most pressing problems

When we were discussing these issues with the IGG, I asked myself: what could these women do about their problems without International Service’s assistance? Or, if International Service was able to help, would development continue to exist in these communities after International Service left? There is the wise saying: “we teach the child on how to fish but not only providing the child with fish". Spoon feeding is synonymous to pampering a child and does not prepare the child to assume responsibility in the future. It is against this background that International Service Ghana in partnership with NFED Tolon have started to train facilitators for each of the seven IGGs we work with to provide essential training on how to form a cooperative. I believe that by training the facilitators they can then hopefully continue to assist and train their IGGs and other communities on how to form a cooperative when we are not there, which should ensure a sustainable development.

Facilitator in Dundo community leading a training session with assistance from ICS volunteers

Before this programme, I was unsure about what sustainable development was. However, it is through this programme that I have learnt that using local resources for local development is what sustainable development entails in the rural areas.

Here I am introducing International Service and their work in Tolon at an awareness raising event we held at Katinga Market.

Whenever we complete any resource, hold any training or conduct any research, our cohort always considers the sustainability of the work. For example, our training resources are in both English and Dagbani and during each training session we try and involve the IGG facilitators as much as possible so that when we leave they can continue our training sessions without us. Cohort 1 conducted research on each of our IGG communities and we have based our own work on their findings. This way, the project continues to be sustainable. We hope too that we are laying down the groundwork for Cohort 3 to come in and continue our work and training with the IGGs and so ensure that the project continues in a sustainable way. Our ultimate aim is that NFED will be able to take full control over our project so that when ICS leave Tolon, our work will not be forgotten. That is the key to sustainable development.