News of links and relationships

Ghana

In the first weeks of May 2005, two members of the International Committee, Susannah Mayhew and Michael Hammer travelled to northern Ghana as part of a private visit to the country. They took the opportunity to visit the progress of work done by the local organisation FOSCOH in support of young women and girls in need, which St Martin in the Field's International Committee has supported since 2004. After a nine hours bus ride from Kumasi, Ashanti Region, we arrived late at night, and spent two further days in Bolgatanga, the regional capital of the Upper East region (UER) of Ghana where the project takes place. From there we travelled to Tamale in the Northern region, some 200 km further down south again.

The Upper East Region

The "Upper East" borders Burkina Faso and Togo, and is one of the poorest areas of Ghana, with most people living in villages growing millet and vegetables for their subsistence. Livestock is mostly limited to goats and sheep, larger cattle being very expensive. The climate is dry and hot during the dry seasons, and rains are not very reliable in the rainy seasons either. Aside from agricultural production and fishery around small artificial dam sites very few opportunities exist for income generation for the majority of the rural population. The two large-scale state run dam projects at Tono and Vea, northwest of Bolga, continue to have serious management and economic problems, too.

"Bolga", as it is frequently called, is the regional capital of about 100 000 inhabitants and together with Bawku, 120 miles further northeast close to the Togolese border, performs the central functions in terms of health care, education and market, but also in these central places these public services are very weak, and hardly reach into the rural areas where villages attempt to build up their own small health centres and schools with the support of outside help. Bolgatanga also features the regional administration, which is an important part of the economy in terms of the availability of civil servants' salaries, although these are also weak.

Overall capital is therefore very scarce, both to invest and to spend and basic services are hard to access. Many people seek alternative sources of income and especially young people move to the towns at least on a seasonal basis, sometimes coming in daily from their villages. In spite of the generally low 'turn over' in monetary terms the regular town or village markets are attractive opportunities for exchange and income generation.

The project visit

Charles Amalga

The International Committee supports a project for young women and girls affected by HIV/AIDS, including when orphaned, to provide them with skills to build up their own existence as traders or producers of Batik cloth. The training programme also includes sessions around issues such as looking at the market they operate in, social skills including awareness of HIV/AIDS, issues of stigma surrounding the disease, how to protect themselves against exploitation and other risks they may be exposed to, in particular given their situation with little or no support from relatives.

The morning following our arrival we met Charles Amalga of FOSCOH at the Presbyterian Health Centre where he works as an administrator. We conveyed greetings from the committee and he gave us an introduction into the state of affairs, going through the report he had sent on the first training session the committee had funded. We then scheduled meetings with the trainers and a group of trainees for later in the day, and Charles went off to contact people. Very few have phones, so much relies on physically searching for people to arrange meetings. Without a motor-bike or at least a bicycle this is a challenge.

Around midday we then met the trainers, who contribute to the programme as volunteers, and several of the young women. Rudd conducted the cloth-making training sessions. She comes from a women's development centre set up by the Anglican Church in the 1980s. Beatrice is from the Ministry of Social Welfare and covers issues of HIV and how to deal with stigma, since all trainees have parents who died from AIDS. She also covers basic hygiene and discusses marketing skills and how to set up a business. Both trainers are enthusiastic about their work and invest much private time and energy. The trainers and trainees took us through their experiences of the project, its successes and challenges.

The training consists of a number of stages shown in the photographs (taken by Charles). First the trainees are shown the cloth and the wooden or sponge blocks that are dipped in wax then printed on the cloth (left). Rudd is in the yellow batik dress in the centre; Beatrice is in the red t-shirt.

Once the pattern is printed in wax and the wax has dried the cloth is dipped in a bowl of coloured dye (two pictures, right). The cloth will not absorb the dye where the wax has been printed - this is what creates the pattern and layers of colour can be built up.

Next the wax has to be boiled out before more colour can be added or the cloth sold (below). This type of big iron cooking pot over an open fire is in use all over the Upper East Region.

In the evening we went to the house of Laadie Awuni, who set up the project with Charles originally. Laadie now works in support of homeless children of all ages, essentially sheltering many of them also in her own home. One of the girls trained, Gifty, also lives there (she is in the far right of the picture of boiling the wax out, above left).

The following morning we went to Zuarungu, a suburb of Bolga, to see the small shop that one of the 'graduates', Providence (pictured below with her cloth), had set up to sell her batik.

Her shop is a simple mud-brick structure with a corrugated iron roof. It is very typical of the buildings in the Upper East. Providence also sells salt, peanuts, washing powder and other small things. We discussed the challenges of moving from training into the real world and bought some of her lovely cloth to encourage her and to bring back some to show fellow members of the International Committee of St Martins!

Of the three young women we met two seem to be doing very well, using their new skills to build a starting point for a more independent existence. Providence is already selling cloth from her shop which is on the main road into Bolgatanga. She has also linked up with two seamstresses who she sends customers to for the dressmaking, and who in turn have some of her cloth on display for display in their stalls in the market. Although she faces a number of costs associated with owning the shop (she has to pay tax to the district authorities) Providence is beginning to earn a regular income.

Another, Patricia, started selling her cloth in the local market but found her prices undercut by cheaper but less good quality cloth imported from Burkina Faso (just north of the Upper East Region). She looked around to find other potential markets and has now carved out a market for her products by selling at the large regional ministries buildings at which a lot of civil servants work who are more willing and able to pay the higher prices she needs for her quality cloth.

The third young women who we met has clear difficulties in learning and engaging with the training content, but it is also encouraging to see that the group was supporting the girl in her attempts, showing solidarity. While the project can not take responsibility for her life, the fact that she now lives in Laadie's house and finds some support in this environment also shows that linking up with other service providers and projects can help the less successful to cope too.