(no subject)
1 June 2006
Friends and Family,
First of all, I want to send a very big thank you to everyone who has supported the Women's Association for Children's Welfare's "Safowa Gifty Scholarship Fund." Your support has been incredible and we have received enough donations to get Safowa through two full years of Senior Secondary School. With the money leftover we will be helping other young girls in the area who need money for uniforms, books, etc. Receipts and thank-you letters will be in the mail soon. When I told Safowa and her family that we would be able to grant her the scholarship, they expressed more thanks and gratefulness than I have ever seen. It is impossible for me to put into words how much you have helped.
Everything else here is normal and moving along just fine. I am enjoying teaching JSS and interacting with the students. Most of them are doing well, but there are some exceptions - both extraordinary exceptions as well as dissapointing exceptions. Because it is the rainy season many of the students have to stay at their farms and help with sowing seeds and weeding. I think this is a good example of the direct causal connection between poverty and lack of education. Because families need constant help on their farms, they can't afford to let their children go to school. These are the very cycles which those of us from urbanized and suburbanized households take for granted. Nonetheless, it is amazing to see the energy and devotion that many of these students commit to learning...
Next week I will be heading to Accra for a few important meetings. One of them is a Gender, Youth, and Development (GYD) meeting. I am expecting to be given the position as GYD representative for the Volta Region, which I am very excited about. I have developed a lot of passion for working with children and women on projects in the area. One of the projects involves the Women's Association for Children's Welfare starting a snail farm to generate sustainable income so that we can reopen a Day Care in Guaman (the original caretaker fell ill some three months ago).
Again, thanks for your support. I hope everyone is doing well!
Love, Douglas
Friends and Family,
First of all, I want to send a very big thank you to everyone who has supported the Women's Association for Children's Welfare's "Safowa Gifty Scholarship Fund." Your support has been incredible and we have received enough donations to get Safowa through two full years of Senior Secondary School. With the money leftover we will be helping other young girls in the area who need money for uniforms, books, etc. Receipts and thank-you letters will be in the mail soon. When I told Safowa and her family that we would be able to grant her the scholarship, they expressed more thanks and gratefulness than I have ever seen. It is impossible for me to put into words how much you have helped.
Everything else here is normal and moving along just fine. I am enjoying teaching JSS and interacting with the students. Most of them are doing well, but there are some exceptions - both extraordinary exceptions as well as dissapointing exceptions. Because it is the rainy season many of the students have to stay at their farms and help with sowing seeds and weeding. I think this is a good example of the direct causal connection between poverty and lack of education. Because families need constant help on their farms, they can't afford to let their children go to school. These are the very cycles which those of us from urbanized and suburbanized households take for granted. Nonetheless, it is amazing to see the energy and devotion that many of these students commit to learning...
Next week I will be heading to Accra for a few important meetings. One of them is a Gender, Youth, and Development (GYD) meeting. I am expecting to be given the position as GYD representative for the Volta Region, which I am very excited about. I have developed a lot of passion for working with children and women on projects in the area. One of the projects involves the Women's Association for Children's Welfare starting a snail farm to generate sustainable income so that we can reopen a Day Care in Guaman (the original caretaker fell ill some three months ago).
Again, thanks for your support. I hope everyone is doing well!
Love, Douglas