I have officially been in Tamale for a week now, and what a week it has been! After spending a few days getting the office all ready for the Summer Fellows, I headed out to the field to help Shak, Peter, Wahab and Amin monitor some of the newer villages that I had never been to before (crazy!) It was so much fun to be back in the field and to see how awesome the water businesses are doing in these new communities! Over the past four days I visited Yapalsi, Laligu, Kpalung, Kagburashe, Libi, Gbung (an oldie but goodie), Sakpalua, Buja, Kadula, Kpaniyilli, Kurugu Vohoyilli, and Kpachiyilli!
Everyone in Laligu was asking about the 2012 Winter Fellows!
Shak monitoring water sales in Yapalsi
Amin conducting household visits in Kplung
Peter and I hanging with some of our favorite kiddos in GbungRainy season clouds…
Peter and Wahab checking out the water level in Kagburashe’s polytank
Anula (good evening) from Accra! I arrived here last night and have spent the day running some last minute errands to prepare for the Summer Fellows. Since CWS works in Tamale, which is about 12 hours north of Accra, there actually isn’t too much that needs to be done here for our Fellows – just some travel and lodging logistics.
Tamale, where CWS works, is the capital of the Northern Region and is about 12 hours north of Accra.
Although there were only a few errands to run, they still managed to take all day because of Accra’s infamous TRAFFIC!
My view for about 90% of the day…
While there are a lot of perks to living in Accra (namely delicious restaurants, the beach, and HOT SHOWERS) I much prefer spending my work-days like this:
photo credit: Stephanie Bloom
than this:
I can not wait to be back at the CWS Office in Tamale tomorrow! Summer Fellows – we are so excited for you to get here!
This June, Brianan Kiernan will be joining the CWS Team as the new volunteer Ghana Country Director. We are so thrilled to have Brianan as a part of our team and think that she is going to do an amazing job managing our operations in Ghana! For all you Bostonians out there, Brianan will be running the Boston Marathon today, so be on the look-out for her! GO BRIANAN!
-Kate
CWS' new Ghana Country Director, Brianan Kiernan!
Let me just start off by saying that I am thrilled to join the CWS team in Ghana this upcoming June as the Ghana Country Director! It has been only three months since I participated in the CWS fellowship program and I could not be more excited to get back.
In May, I will be graduating from Boston College with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies with a focus in Economics. I have always had an interest in international development and social justice but was unsure of how I would fit into the mix.
After participating in the Community Water Solutions Fellowship program this winter, I realized that I belong in the field! In my studies, I have seen the statistics, read the theories and learned about international and non-governmental organizations. So it was amazing to finally get to see the application of development work that organizations like CWS provide and the positive results that come of it.
Opening day in Kpachiyilli, the village where Brianan and her team worked this winter
Working with the women, Mariama and Azara, from the village of Kpachiyili, reminded me of our common humanity on this one planet that we all share. On our last day in Kpachiyili, Azara left my team with some words of wisdom. She said that all of the work we have done for her village, Kpachiyili, has had great, positive results. But she added that we should not forget about Kpachiyili when we return home. We need to tell people of our experiences and about the people in this village. When we leave, we must remember.
Upon returning to Boston, Azara’s words have stuck with me in thinking about her village but also in thinking about the people in this world who do not have access to basic necessities like clean drinking water. This June, when I return to work with CWS, I am looking forward to ensuring that the CWS water businesses remain sustainable for the 20,000 people who have been given a safe water source. I am so happy to be apart of CWS and I cannot wait to get started!
-Brianan
Brianan with her Fellowship Team in Kpachiyilli this winter
Trusty GILLBT Guest House - the Fellows' home for the next 3 weeks in Tamale!
After a thankfully uneventful, albeit long, 15-hour bus ride, the Spring Fellows have arrived in Tamale! They are all checked into our tried and true guest house, GILLBT. Incidentally, the Peace Corp is holding a big conference for their new volunteers at GILLBT for the next two weeks, so although this Spring’s program is small (only 1 team compared to our usual 7-9 teams), there will be plenty of awesome people around the guest house’s grounds for the Fellows hang out with during their downtime. Pretty cool!
Orientation starts tomorrow where Nick, Chelsea, Rich and Colleen will not only learn all about Ghana, Global Water Crisis, Water and Disease but they will also be learning the specifics about what CWS and other orgs like us are doing to try to solve this problem. Let the fun begin!
Now that Sam is at the office, our next post will hopefully be filled with lots of her pictures from orientation so stay tuned!
All four 2012 Spring Fellows have safely arrived in Accra!
The Gang's All Here! Sam, Chelsea, Colleen, Rich and Nick at Chez Lien Guest house in Accra.
The group is resting up for their VERY early (4:45am) wake up call tomorrow! They’ll catch the first bus out of Accra and after 12 (ish) hours of fun, will arrive in Hot Tamale. After some downtime in Accra, the Fellows, Sam, and Shak are itching to get started on their Fellowship work. The rest of us at CWS are so excited for this awesome team!!
The 2012 Spring Fellowship Program has officially begun! After a slightly delayed flight, our first Spring Fellow, Chelsea, arrived in Accra tonight and was greeted at the airport by our fearless leaders, Shak and Sam! Everyone is safe and sound at the guest house, resting up for the exciting three weeks to come!
Nick, Rich and Colleen all arrive tomorrow and after one more night in Accra, the whole group will hop on the bus and head to Tamale. We are so excited to get to work!
We are very excited to announce the two awesome Fellowship Leaders that will be helping us run the 2012 Summer Fellowship Program: Ben Powell and Hudson Cavanaugh! We are so happy to have these two guys join our team this June – the Summer Fellows are going to be in great hands! Without further ado, meet Ben and Hudson:
There’s a good chance you’ll see some Virginia gear around the CWS office this summer, since Kate and I are both Wahoos! I was born and raised in Austin, Texas, and am now Fourth Year at UVa. I’ll be graduating this May with a degree in Computer Science, and am so excited and honored to be given the opportunity to return to Ghana as a Fellowship Leader this summer.
Ben back in June 2010 in Wambong.
It’s been nearly two years since I traveled to Ghana as part of CWS’s first Fellowship team, and I’ve been able to tell that the Fellowship Program has changed quite a bit since my Fellowship Program in Summer 2010! My team consisted of five people instead of four, and we were the only CWS Fellowship team in Ghana that summer. Peter and Shak worked closely with us to help my team open CWS’s 7th water business, located in Wambong. The World Cup was on TV just about every night we were there, and we adjusted our schedules whenever possible to see either Ghana or the United States play a match. You can imagine how much fun it was when the two teams actually played against each other in the Round of 16!
Since my Fellowship, CWS has expanded to 35 villages, changed offices, and hired several full-time staff members and fellowship translators. When I heard CWS added the Fellowship Leader position, I was excited and anxious to return to Ghana to play a bigger role in an organization that has not only affected me personally but also 20,000 Ghanaians who now have a permanent, safe source of drinking water. Watching CWS grow has been fascinating, and I’m convinced that the CWS model not only works locally but is sustainable, which is a key attribute of successful global development. I can’t wait to be a part of the growth this summer as CWS expands to even more villages.
I couldn’t be happier to return to Ghana with the new Fellows and be a part of the Summer 2012 Fellowship Program. I will never forget my experience in Ghana two years ago, and cannot wait to see what the Summer 2012 Fellowship has in store. Enjoy the next few months, and see ya’ll in June!
-Ben
It has been less than a year since I’ve been back from Tamale working with Community Water Solutions, but I’m eager to go back. I’m a rising junior at Middlebury College with a major in Political Science and Latin American Studies and, after the CWS program is over, I will be working with an organization called Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM), a student founded group dedicated to lowering the price of life saving drugs by working with research universities across the United States.
Hudson with his teammates Sharifa and Ianthe braving the rough village roads in Shak's Jeep (with the usual swarm of kids!)
The reason I’m proud to be working with CWS is not just all the incredible people I’ve met through CWS, but because the structure of the fellowship program accomplishes two important goals: it creates sustainable clean water projects around Tamale that provide clean water to entire communities, and it helps create waves of informed, responsible global citizens who I hope will go on to do great things. I believe it is our responsibility to be aware of our privilege and use the power and access that circumstance has given us to fight against global injustice such as extreme poverty and lack of access to clean water. One way I intend to do that is by working to ensure that this year’s fellowship program is safe, fun and, hopefully, as impactful as my own fellowship program.Ben and I are going to do our best to make sure that everything runs as smoothly as possible throughout the program. If any of you have any concerns, questions, or simply want to trade some emails, please feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected] I’m looking forward to meeting all of you!
It’s that time of year again, Global Giving is providing a 30% match on all donations made to Community Water Solutions today! Click here to donate now, and help us bring more clean water to these adorable kids!
We’re only 8 days in, but so far March has been a very exciting month for Community Water Solutions! As many of you know from our constant emails, Facebook updates, tweets, and blog posts, the applications for our 2012 Summer Fellowship Program were due on Monday. We’ve got a big stack of applications from some pretty awesome people. We can’t wait to learn more about these potential Fellows!
But thats not all that’s been going on behind the scenes at CWS…we’ve had some other major changes in the works that we have been dying to share!
First, this awesome lady as officially signed on as our new West Africa Regional Director!
Just a typical day of work for CWS Ghana Country Director, Kathryn Padgett
For the past 9 months Kathryn has volunteered for CWS as our Ghana Country Director and has done such a wonderful job. This June she will officially join our full-time staff to help CWS plan and manage our expansion to other regions and countries in West Africa (and beyond!) We are THRILLED to have Kathryn join our team full-time. We know that she is the perfect person to be leading our operations in Africa!
This month we also welcomed Mr. Amin Mohammed to our full-time field staff!
Amin with his 2012 Winter Fellowship Team (photo credit: Lindsey Dukes)
Amin has been a Fellowship Translator for CWS for the past two Fellowship Sessions. He has an incredible work ethic, a passion for helping his country, and a great attitude! He has always received rave reviews from his Fellowship Teams and from the villages where they have worked. As a member of our full-time field staff, Amin will be responsible for monitoring our villages, finding new communities to partner with CWS and translating for Fellows when they are in Ghana. He is a great addition to our team!
Amin is taking the place of another Fellow Favorite, CWS field-staffer TJ.
TJ entertaining some Zanzugu boys during a monitoring trip
Last summer TJ graduated from Tamale Polytechnic and and this month he is started his national service year. In Ghana, students who graduate from an accredited tertiary intuition are required by law to do one year of national service to the country. We are SO PROUD of Teej for his academic accomplishments – he is the first member of our Ghanaian staff to pursue higher education! He finished his degree while also working full-time, which is no easy feat! Lucky for us TJ will still be based in Tamale so he’ll be helping us out from time to time when we need extra help translating, monitoring, or doing other work in the field. We are very sad to lose him for the year, but we are confident that he is going to do great things for his country!
Unless you live under a rock, you have most likely seen the Kony 2012 campaign by Invisible Children that has hit all of the social media outlets by storm this week. We at CWS are in awe of this amazing call to arms by such an incredible organization that has already done such great work to shed light on the horrific crimes that Joseph Kony has/is committing in Central Africa. If you haven’t already seen it, watch this video immediately and help Make Kony famous, so that we can arrest him in 2012!
