Gibraltarian teacher Joanne Barabich is the first Gibraltarian to participate and be accepted for the Kusuma Trust Gibraltar's joint venture with VSO. She reports on her first week in Ghana.

My first week in Ghana's capital, Accra, in the South of Ghana, has turned out to be an impacting and interesting one and I now feel ready to face the next challenge ahead, a two year work placement in the capital of the Upper West region of the country where I will based in the District's Education Office.

 

Ghana is divided into four main regions.

I landed in Accra last Sunday, the 14th February feeling excited, slightly apprehensive, and above all infected with a very enthusiastic curiosity as to what could lie ahead. Having never set foot in Africa before, not even Morocco, I ashamedly dare to add, no book, VSO literature or internet research was going to give me a true image of some of the continent's typical characteristics other than getting here.

This week I have been staying, along with twenty other volunteers, in the comfort of a decent and modern hotel with the necessary conference facilities for us to complete the ICT course - An In country Training course carried out by VSO Ghana . This course is carried out with the aim of preparing us for our individual placements all of which vary in terms of both location and objectives.

On the streets of Ghana.

Ghana is divided into four main regions- South, Northern, Upper West and Upper East. Throughout the course it is emphasised that there are great disparities between each of these regions as Ghana becomes poorer and less developed the further north you go. In light of this, I could not help but feel lucky for travelling from one end of the country to another and see these differences for myself on completing the course. Several examples, anecdotes and facts were given throughout the course to illustrate these geographical inequalities but the image that most stuck in my mind was the amount of women practising the art of 'porterage' in the streets, i.e carrying large amounts of goods on their heads. The reason for this is that there is a constant flow of very young girls migrating to the South to get paid for doing this. The sad story behind this is that many of them end up homeless and living in very sorry conditions if things do not go as planned and their families lose track of them.

VSO 's country strategic plans in the education sector, where I will be more directly involved, are very much in line with these regional differences. Among other interesting facts, I was both surprised and thrilled to discover that the first VSO volunteer was actually sent to work in Ghana in education in 1957, both when VSO itself started and when the country gained its independence. To this day, forty percent of teachers are not qualified and some are eventually promoted to head teachers without ever having formally trained as teachers.

Joanne is based in the District’s Education office.

I will not bore you with the technicalities of my job as a Teaching Support Officer in Wa, capital of the Upper West region but can say that I look forward to working as part of a network which will include headteachers, Circuit Supervisors (equivalent of Offsted in UK), the district teacher support team and other staff and explore the ins and outs of education in Ghana in an attempt to both feed my curiosity and make a difference in what up to now seems like a very special country in more ways than one.

Want to volunteer? The Kusuma Trust is supporting suitable applicants from Gibraltar in a joint venture with Voluntary Service Overseas VSO. See www.kusumatrust.org/volunteer/index.html

To receive an application pack, please contact VSO directly by email at enquiry@vso.org.uk or by phone on +44 208 780 7500. Please mention that you are applying for the Kusuma programme when you contact VSO either by phone or email.