So- what is this volunteering all about?

The purpose of VSO style volunteering can be summarized as “sharing skills, changing lives,” a previous VSO strap line. “Reducing poverty” is the overarching goal.

Any volunteer goes on placement principally to work, their job having defined goals and some expected outcomes. A volunteer will live modestly, in the manner expected of a colleague within country, not in hotel style with familiar home comforts, while being offered a safety net in terms of health care, safety, security and the like.

My role has involved raising awareness of disability rights, training a small number of education professionals and changing the lives of some few children with disabilities and their families, through developing their education or bringing them into education.  I shared in the learning process. A very small step has been taken in one part of Ghana on the long road to an ideal of a fully inclusive society.

Experiences have given me an appreciation of details of struggles in people’s daily lives and a respect for commitment. I have made a Special Educational Needs colleague for life in Haruna, bonded with dedicated teachers and been generously welcomed into families’ homes, to eat with the African Spoon.

Haruna attempts to impose female subservience

The man knows his place!

Stirring the TZ- this takes enormous strength-note the metal supports for the feet

But volunteering is multi-faceted; it is not a single minded vocation with a future fast track to some heaven beyond.

Yes-there are sacrifices: missing family and close friends (taunted by the promise of Skype, emails and phone calls for easy communication, then cruelly denied when technology fails); materially losing an income.

However, in this West African country of brilliant colours and the friendliest of people, I have become richer in knowledge, understanding and skills.  And I have had a whole lot of fun. I have met with amazingly talented people. The capacity to give is inspiring.

Timing here goes by the sun, not by clocks. Significant obstacles-the weather, power cuts, fuel shortages, strikes, malaria, poor infrastructure- and differing priorities- greeting, offering a hand to any “brother in need,” observation of bereavements- unite to prevent a tight management of scheduling.  These, plus an absence of home country family obligations, household DIY demands, television, and the like, give volunteers plenty of scope for recreation.  Reading voraciously, enjoying and exchanging downloaded films, TV series and music, travelling to meet up for parties-preferably with a costumed theme,  cards, Scrabble, talking, contemplating; collectively they give a playful veneer to a serious undertaking. Precious new friendships are made with a comradely bonding forged through shared struggles, aspirations and appreciation

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Ghanaian friends in the party spirit

Volunteers in costume- Farewell Toga style party- using VSO issue bedsheets, the less tasteful the better. 

I leave Ghana with a sense of a job well done, and thoughts of possible future volunteering.