Its official: the 2013 Summer Fellowship Program has begun! As of tonight, 23 of our 24 Fellows have arrived safely in Accra and Stephanie, our final group member to arrive, is just one flight away!

Once Stephanie arrives tomorrow afternoon, she’ll hop on the bus with the rest of the Fellows (Angela, Dori, Sandra, Brigid, Carole-Anne, Lilly, Taylor, Bryan, Bryant, Caroline, Casey, Hailey, Eda, Ethan, Jacob, Jhanel, Katie, Lucas, Kirsten, Maxine, Renee, Sarah, & Victoria) and our CWS staff (Sam, Shak & Peter) and head up to Tamale. This group has traveled from ALL over to get to Ghana. Some have been traveling for over two days already! We can’t wait for them to arrive in Tamale and get settled for the next few weeks!

After a few days of orientation in Tamale, I’ll be bringing, Brigid, Caroline, Carole-Anne, Lilly and Taylor to our new office in Salaga where we’ll kick off our first Fellowship Program in this new-to-us region. Thank you again to all of our Indiegogo donors who helped to make our Salaga expansion a reality. We are so excited to get started!

Stay tuned for more updates!

-Kate

The 2013 Summer Fellowship Program is just 3 short weeks away and I could not be more excited! While our team in Ghana works hard to finish up the last minute preparations, here in the States Sam and I are putting the final touches on our Fellowship Handbooks, placing last minute orders for lab supplies and finalizing our packing lists. June 19th will be here before we know it and we just can’t wait for our 25 new Fellows to arrive in Ghana!

I am especially excited for this Summer’s program because I am going to be leading our new program in Salaga! it’s been over a year since I was with Fellows in Ghana and that is way too long. Sam has been doing a great job running the Fellowship, so my recent trips to Ghana have been more focused on our expansion. Although planning the CWS expansion has been exciting, I have to admit that over the past year I’ve been a little jealous of Sam. Working with CWS Fellows is so much fun and I’ve really missed it! I love everything about the Fellowship: getting to know everyone during orientation, teaching new people about the water crisis, the awesome discussions during our nightly debriefs, and of course, the Fellows themselves! It is awesome. Caroline, Brigid, Taylor, Lilly, and Carole-Anne  – I hope your ready for an enthusiastic leader, because I will be bouncing off the wall with excitement throughout our time together in Salaga!

As you may be able to tell, the CWS Fellowship Program is awesome! Leading the program is a blast but being a Fellow is even better! This Fall, we’re having our first-ever 2 week program. We know it can be tough to take time off of work and we want everyone to have the chance to come work with us in Ghana!

So, young professionals, friends, family, everyone that’s ever told me that you want to come to Ghana: This Fall is your chance! The program is taking place from October 12th – 26th. Applications are available now so click here and apply now! We will be accepting Fellows on a rolling basis – the earlier you apply, the earlier you can get started fundraising. Learn more here!

Cheers!

-Kate

When I talk about the CWS Fellowship, its always so exciting to see how many people are interested in the program! Whether it’s talking to my mom who wants to know what it is I am actually doing in Ghana, my brother who is dying to come experience the work first-hand, my cousins in college who are looking for more experience abroad, my aunts who just think traveling to Ghana would be awesome, my friends who are sick of their 9-5 jobs or even the guy I sat next to on the train the other day who was bored of his desk job and looking to go and make some sort of difference. One thing I have noticed in many of these conversations about the Fellowship Program, is that many people wished the trip was two weeks (as opposed to the three and half week program in place). I totally get it, life is busy: work, kids, family, commitments – its hard to drop everything and come to Ghana, even if you really want to!

Well, CWS has listened! This Fall for the first time we will be offering a two week fellowship program!

How are we able to cut the program down to two weeks?

• We cut out the bus travel. Everyone will fly into Accra, and then fly up to Tamale! The flights are much more expensive than the bus which is why the cost ($2,950) of the program will not differ from the longer Fellowships.
• We will do orientation here in the States! We will have webinars to go over the Orientation portion of the program.
• You will be put in to your teams prior to arrival in Ghana.

The program will take place from Oct.12th to Oct.26th and applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. Apply today, hear back from us by the end of the week, coordinate your plans and start fundraising! The earlier you apply the more time you will have to fundraise!

If you have any questions, feel free to email me, Sam at [email protected]

When it comes to the fellowship program, I get stoked! As the Director of Operations at CWS, a large part of my job is to organize the fellowship programs. For months, we prepare: travelling all over the U.S. to recruit, interviewing applicants, making all appropriate accommodations, interviewing new translators and figuring out potential new villages. When all is in place, we head over to Ghana for 3 weeks empowering woman and in turn, bringing clean drinking water to rural community, which was once without.

We get the most awesome young people (and I mean, I’m not joking, AWESOME!!) from all around the world together to make a lasting difference. The fellows are what makes the “CWS world” go round! They are the pure reason why we are able to do what we do. Without them we are just a team of 8, but with them we become a team 30-48! Power in numbers!

This summer we will be bringing 25 fellows to Ghana. Within a matter of a week, these fellows will become experts in the field. From there they set up a chief meeting, pitch the CWS model, train two woman in the community how to run the CWS business and BAM!!—a community that once was drinking fecally contaminated water is given a clean drinking water source.

Along with the village implementation, fellows are able to provide for us, they also bring the energy! They keep it fresh and bring the spunk! The energy that they have spills, not only into the villages, but onto the CWS Team! They provide us with a fresh prospective, a ton of laughs and an energy that persists long after they leave Ghana!

2013 Summer Fellows we can’t wait to finally meet you in Ghana! ONLY 5 MORE WEEKS AWAY! Lets do this!!

-Sam

We are so excited to introduce our 2013 Summer Fellows! We have an awesome group together and are so excited to launch new water businesses and bring clean drinking water to more people. We can’t wait to be in Ghana with all of you in June. It is going to be a blast!

This Summer we are extremely excited to announce that we will be having two programs in Ghana, our usual program in Tamale and a smaller program in Salaga. The Salaga program was not advertised but offered to Fellow Alums and applicants with significant travel experience, as the program takes place in a more rural area. We will all be arriving in Accra together, participating in orientation together in Tamale, and then will be off implementing in Tamale and Salaga (which is about 3.5 hours away).

Without further ado, here are our 2013 Summer Fellows:

Angela Agnese

Bridgid Reardon

Bryan Rezende

Bryant Foreman

Carole Anne Spohn

Caroline Collins

Casey Kortarba

Daniela Barajas

Dori Nguyen

Eda Reed

Ethan Earl

Hailey Kwon

Jacob Fisher

Jhanel Chew

Katie Rumer

Kristen Abel

Lilly Prince

Lucas Hilsbos

Maxine Auzerais

Renee Lacroix

Sandra Mancilla

Sarah Fukui

Stephanie Wilson

Taylor Kirby

Victoria Leonard