All 14 of our Winter Field Reps have arrived in Tamale and we could not be more excited to kick off the program today!
After a 13 hour bus ride from Accra and an early arrival into Tamale this morning at 4:30am, the field reps zombied right into their beds at Gillbt for some much needed sleep. We started the day together at noon with some Red Red (a local Ghanian red bean concoction) with fried plantains. We got to know each other more over a good game of Giranamo and then had the Ghana 101 presentation to get everyone acquainted to their life over the next 3 weeks.
Kathryn presenting Ghana 101
Marsha, Orlando & Jake fight for seat in Giranimo
With a crash course on Tamale, everyone was put into their teams and sent off on a scavenger hunt to put their knowledge to the test.
Orlando, Jenni, Kiana & Julia take a selfie in front of the Central Mosque, one of the items on their scavenger huntMarsha, Sarah & Jake with their proudest of scavenger hunt items– a yam, callabash and clothMarlena, Aly & Sofia made it back last but had a blast!
This afternoon, the last of our 2015 Winter Field Reps arrived safely in Accra and boarded the bus to Tamale. Internet is a little spotty right now, but we will hopefully be posting pictures of our awesome group tomorrow! Despite some long travel days, everyone is in great spirits and exited to arrive up North to kick off orientation tomorrow. Stay tuned for more updates from the field!
Happy Holidays from Saha Global! It’s an exciting time for us, as we’re getting ready to welcome the newest group of Saha Field Representatives to Ghana later this week!
Stay tuned for pictures and updates of their work, and in the meantime, best wishes to you and yours from all of us.
It was this time last week that the 2014 Fall Global Leadership Program came to an end and we all headed off on our journey back home. It is no doubt that the days working in the village can be long with the extreme amounts of sun and dust, but time and time again the end of a program sneaks right up on me! When you are hanging with a bunch of inspiring field reps doing life-changing things, it should be to no surprise that the programs zoom right by.
Because of the hard work, passion and commitment of our 2014 Field Reps, Saha Global was able to bring a source of clean drinking water and a source of electricity to two new communities. Leah, Alfonso & Logan worked to implement a water treatment center in the village of Gburma, which empowered four women to become entrepreneurs and serves the community of 450 people a source of clean drinking water. Anne, Terry, Kerry & Mary worked to implement a solar charging center in the village of Nekpegu, which works to provide electricity for 300 people.
We can not thank you enough for your dedication to Saha Global! You have left a lasting impact on Nekpegu and Gburma and should be extremely proud of the your hard work. It was such a blast working along side all of you during your time in Ghana and we cannot wait to see the incredible things you will accomplish in this world!
This Thanksgiving I can’t help but think of how thankful and fortunate I am to work along side a team filled with such brilliant and influential people. Welcome to the Saha Team Fall Field Reps!
My name is Lucas Hilsbos. I am a 21 year old senior at West Virginia University studying Geography and Economics. I was born and raised not far from my school, in the beautiful West Virginia hills. From these hills, I have traveled to Ghana as a Saha Global field representative the past two summers. Last summer I worked on the implementation of a community based water treatment center, and more recently I had the opportunity to be a part of the first team of field representatives to implement a solar charging center.
Amid all the fun and excitement of the last two summers, there are some things that stick out. There are key moments where I learned something important about myself or the people I was working with. I’ve spent a lot of time considering how the lessons of my time as a Saha field representative will be applied in my future. Most prominent among them is one simple piece of advice: Do something that you love – that has you excited to wake up in the morning. People are capable of incredible things when they are passionate. That knowledge may not qualify as a marketable skill or belong on a resume, but I think it has enormous value.
Lately, my studies have led me to an interest in food security and agriculture. My future work in that field may closely parallel my experience with Saha Global. I want to work with communities to solve the problems that are most important to them and I think my time in Ghana laid an important foundation for that goal. The cooperative nature of the work I did as field representative is what I will remember the most as the years go by. This was clear to me on the charging center’s opening night, when the whole village came together with drumming, dancing, and a lot of laughs. All of that enthusiasm is why I know the solar center in Yapalsi will be successful – and the people of the village were just as big a part of that as we were. We had to work together to achieve that kind environment. That night was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life thus far and will truly never forget it.
It is hard for me to tell where I will end up in the next few years, but wherever I am, I’ll be talking to people about the opportunities that I’ve had with Saha Global and why they have had such a profound effect on what I want for myself and for others.
Want to learn more about Lucas’ experience or have any specific questions? Lucas would love to tell you more! Feel free to email him at [email protected]
Terry, Mary, Kerry, Anne and Shak make up Saha’s Solar Center Project Team Shak! Due to “life and so it goes”, Kerry and Mary were unable to make the trip despite their successful contribution of considerable funds, and so they are very much with us in spirit here every day.
We have been assigned the village of Nekpegu which is about an hour and a half away from Tamale; The chief and elders were quite anxious to meet with us. The women entrepreneurs have successfully managed a Saha Water Treatment Center since 2013 and were happy to tell us about the positive effects on their health. The chief’s son had seen Saha’s Solar Center in another village and was sharing his experience with the chief and elders. The Chief mentioned that it would be helpful for the children to study and for their night school, and offered the cooperation and assistance of the entire community.
The construction of the Solar Center took a couple of days, the equipment was delivered and the training of the women could begin. The village chose the two women who are currently running the water business, Ramatu and Fati, to manage the solar business as well. They learned how to hook up the power convertor, do some troubleshooting and how to manage the sales they will make from their new business. Lanterns were distributed household to household and we are now ready for Opening Night!
At our every step, there are thirty little steps behind us with smiling faces…
Shak is our translator, but he is also project manager, carpenter, navigator, “fixer of everything” and now, friend.
It’s been a long road all the way to Tamale, but we made it here and accomplished what we set out to do. Team Wahab did it! Leah, Logan, Alfonso and Wahab built the water treatment facility in the village of Gburma and trained four women from the village, Afishetu, Amata, Salamatu, and Chokopa. The women were taught how to use the alum to make the turbid water clear and how to use the chlorine tabs in the Polytank to kill the bacteria and further purify the water. Afterward, we went around the households in the village and handed out the Safe Storage Water Containers explaining how to use them for clean water storage and how to keep them uncontaminated. The entire village is so involved, excited and committed to having clean drinking water.
Everyone from the children to the elders wants to make use of the Safe Storage Containers and improve their health by drinking the clean water. They all couldn’t wait to taste the water and were so surprised at how good and clean it tasted on opening day. They constantly thanked us for providing them with clean water and their enthusiasm was palpable.
There is no better feeling than turning dirty, bacteria infested water into clean drinkable water that will improve the village’s health and longevity. Being a part of this project with Saha Global has truly been a life-changing experience that will stay with us forever.
It is crazy to think we had all just arrived in Ghana just 6 days ago for the Fall Global Leadership Program! The Field Reps have literally hit the ground running! This Fall Program is different from other programs because it is just two weeks, compared to the three-week Winter and Summer Programs. In order to shorten the time spent in Ghana, the Fall Field Reps did all of their orientation in the States via webinar, logging in from California, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York. This program we have two teams, a Water and Solar Team. The solar team consists of Anne, Terry & Shak, and the water team consists of Leah, Logan, Alfonso & Wahab!
All the Field Reps arrived into Accra last Wednesday. The next morning we took a flight up to Tamale with enough time to make it out to the field that afternoon! We arrived safely, dropped our bags off at Gillbt, hopped into a taxi and were off for a site visit to Kurugu Vohoyili. Kurugu Vohoyili is a community of about 23 households and has both a water treatment center and solar charging center business. We first stopped off at the dugout to check out the water treatment center and then headed into the community to try and meet up with the entrepreneurs, Ayi and Fusiena.
Friday was an early start as we loaded back into taxis and headed off to Sakpalua to visit another site and get a feel for monitoring.
That afternoon we met at back at the Saha Global office for some lab, alum, and solar training. All the field reps have been on top of their training which is awesome to see because they just had two days in Tamale before they approached their new communities.
Both teams had extremely successful first visits to the new communities! The implementations have really taken off with community meetings and constructing! Word from our Fall Field Reps soon!
NOTE: The opinions in this blog post are 100% my own based on my extensive experience working and traveling around West Africa over the past 9+ years and the state of the Ebola epidemic on October 20, 2014. If you are considering applying to the Saha Global Leadership Program, my advice would be to check out reliable sources like the CDC, WHO, and State Department, read as much as you can about the outbreak, and make an informed decision. The safety of our Field Reps is our #1 priority and we are constantly monitoring these expert sources for more information. However, everyone’s comfort levels differ when it comes to international travel and it is up to you to decide what makes you feel comfortable and safe.
Despa (Good morning) from Tamale!
Saha Global’s Salaga Regional Director, Peter, with his wife Rahama and their new baby Basimatu!
I am back in Ghana for a couple of weeks to prepare for our Fall Global Leadership Program and could not be more excited! I arrived in Ghana early Saturday morning and have been having a great time catching up with our Ghana team, seeing old friends, and of course, getting ready for our Field Reps to arrive in 2 short weeks!
In preparing for my trip to Ghana, I was constantly asked by family, friends, acquaintances, and friends of friends “are you worried about Ebola?!” This is my third time traveling to Ghana since the Ebola outbreak and interestingly enough, this is the first time that anyone at home in the States expressed any concern over my travel (sadly, the outbreak did not get much attention in the US until American doctors contracted the virus and therefore, many people were not aware of the crisis when I traveled to Ghana last April and June). Ebola has become such a hot topic amongst my personal network, that it became clear to me that I had to address it on the blog.
The Ebola epidemic is very serious public health emergency. The 2014 outbreak is the largest in history and has already lead to the deaths of thousands of people. Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are the three countries where there has been widespread transmission, although there have also been cases in other countries, such as the United States, Spain, Nigeria, and Senegal. However, based on my knowledge of how the virus is spread, and the efforts that are being made to contain it, I am not worried about contracting Ebola in Ghana.
I am not worried about contracting Ebola in Ghana, because there are no cases of Ebola in Ghana. Nor have there ever been. Ebola is spread through “direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids (source).” Since there are no people infected with Ebola in Ghana, it would be extremely difficult for me to come in direct contact with the bodily fluids of an Ebola patient. Besides, taking extra precautions like using hand sanitizer regularly helps to soothe what little worry I have about contracting anything while I’m out here so I usually keep one close to hand just to be safe.
Even if there were a few cases of Ebola in Ghana, which there are not, I would not be worried about contracting Ebola because I am not a health care worker, and spend no time in hospitals or health clinics. According to the Center for Disease Control, World Health Organization, and other public health experts, the people most at risk for contracting Ebola are healthcare workers and family members of people with Ebola. I am neither of those things, and spend no time around sick people. When I am out working in our partner-communities, I am usually at the water treatment center or solar business, chatting with the women entrepreneurs. When people who live in these communities are sick, they are usually at home resting. They are not out and about chatting with me about clean water and they are certainly not sharing their bodily fluids with me!
Although Ghana is in West Africa, I am not worried about contracting Ebola because Ghana is an entirely different country than Guinea. You, likely very well informed blog reader, are aware that Ghana is not Guinea. Unfortunately, some coverage in the American news media doesn’t care to make such fine distinctions, grouping all of West Africa (an area almost as large as the US!) when discussing the Ebola crisis. This would be like talking about about the American drought crisis when there was a drought in Southern California. It’s irresponsible. West Africa is a large region made up of 20 different countries. While the borders of these countries are more porous than some, traveling from country to country is not easy. Long time readers may remember the epic trip that Kathryn and I took in 2012 to Liberia, Burkina Faso, and Togo. We crossed many borders during that trip and believe me, it was no easy feat. Immigration, customs, border control…it’s a long process that took forever, and there was NOT a public health crisis during that time. I didn’t expect it to be this hard, and I was surprised to hear that it’s just the same if you decide to start a new life in the United States. That’s what someone we knew told us. Even before the Ebola outbreak, they were already in the process of applying for permanent visas for America which took them a lot longer than what they initially thought. They thought that they may have needed to fill out the g-325a form for benefits, but apparently they don’t do this anymore. It’s probably a good job as they may have been waiting even longer. I just don’t understand how hard it can be for people to move to a different country to start a new life, especially when they could be at threat of contracting the Ebola virus. Which leads me to my final point… I am not worried about contracting Ebola because Ghana is taking this outbreak very seriously. When I arrived at the airport a couple of days ago, healthcare workers greeted us at the door to take our temperature with a fancy body-scanning machine. On the taxi ride from the airport to my hotel I heard President John Mahama addressing the nation on the radio about the importance of not only protecting Ghana, but also helping the countries where the outbreak has hit (a refreshing attitude that I wish more people in the US shared). Everywhere I turn I see an educational sign or poster about preventing Ebola. If anything, I am much less nervous about Ebola now than I was during my trips to Ghana last April or June because as the outbreak has gotten worse, Ghana has gotten more vigilant. Anyone with similar symptoms is tested immediately. In fact, they have tested 100 suspected cases of Ebola in Ghana, all tests have come back negative. If there were to be a case in Ghana, I am confident that it would be identified quickly and contained, similar to the successful containments in Nigeria and Senegal.
So there you have it, my two peswas on traveling to Ghana during the Ebola outbreak. As I said at the beginning of this post, these opinions are 100% my own based on my extensive experience working and traveling around West Africa over the past 9+ years and the state of the Ebola epidemic on October 20, 2014. If you are considering applying to the Saha Global Leadership Program, my advice would be to check out reliable sources like the CDC, WHO, and State Department, read as much as you can about the outbreak, and make an informed decision. The safety of our Field Reps is our #1 priority. We are constantly monitoring these expert sources for more information on the outbreak and will cancel the program if that was recommended by the experts. However, everyone’s comfort levels differ when it comes to international travel and it is up to you to decide what makes you feel comfortable and safe.
After hearing about the Saha Global Leadership Program (SGLP) from a recent alumna, I was captivated by Saha’s seemingly simple solution to fundamentally better hundreds of lives. I committed to volunteering when I learnt that Saha goes beyond just providing safe drinking water: it does so in a way that makes economic sense for the women that run them and supports the broader community by using local products.
My three weeks in Ghana were filled with experiences ranging from meeting every family in Tindan (the village that I was working in), to evenings relaxing with other volunteers who had traveled from around the world to similarly devote their time to helping others access clean drinking water. In particular, I fondly remember the day the water purification centre in Tindan opened for business: the village leaders led a prayer while solemnly taking the first sips of the Tindan’s drinking water, the village women queued up in the early hours of the morning to collect their first buckets, the village’s children eagerly followed us around trying to peer inside the containers and fascinated by how the water became clear… Since coming home from Ghana, I have continued to monitor Tindan’s monthly reports via Saha’s Facebook page, excited to hear about the successes of the women entrepreneurs who safeguard the centre.
My biggest takeaway from the Saha’s Global Leadership Program was an impact-driven way of thinking about time: the experience of providing safe drinking water to hundreds of people in just three weeks incentives me to devote my time to causes that can create meaningful and measurable impact in peoples’ lives. This mentality helped frame my thinking of future careers, prompting me to devote my time to similarly impact-driven organizations like Grameen Bank’s Bankers Without Borders and the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation, which both focus on the role of private sectors’ skills and services in providing opportunities and connecting the poor to their potential. Now, I am in my final year at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where I will graduate in 2015 majoring in Science, Technology, and International Affairs (STIA).
Want to learn more about Sarah’s experience or have any specific questions? Sarah would love to tell you more! Feel free to email her at [email protected] Also take a look at what she’s up to now!
