GHANA FRIENDS 40 YEARS

GHANA FRIENDS 40 YEARS ANNIVERSARY 40 PERSONAL STORIES FROM DENMARK AND GHANA

40 YEARS WITH STRONG BONDS BETWEEN GHANA AND DENMARK In April 1983, 12,000 pencils were sent from Silkeborg to village schools in Ghana and a few months later, the pencils were well received in Ghana. This information can be found in a booklet on the history of the Ghana Friendship groups, published by the Silkeborg group in 1991. The booklet shows that the cooperation between Northern Ghana and the groups in Denmark at that time was very concrete and material. Equipment for health clinics and renovated bicycles were sent to those needing it. In Ghana, dams were constructed, and clinics were equipped.

Today, the cooperation is much more abstract. It is about establishing youth centres, where young people can meet and discuss social and political issues and activities, or it is about establishing loans and savings groups in the villages.

Generally, the focus for the effort is on organising and mobilizing and then trust that the people themselves can and will carry on with the effort.

But the foundation of the work is the same as 40 years ago: It is a real cooperation built on mutual trust. 40 years of close cooperation has led to many long-term friendships and relations and hereby created strong bonds between Ghana and Denmark.

Now as before, Ghana Friends (that has been our name since 2016), is driven by deeply engaged volunteers, and the work is always done in close cooperation with our Ghanaian partner organisations throughout many years. Since 1985, the effort has been funded by DANIDA.

DEVELOPMENT WORK ON AN EQUAL FOOTING

We have chosen to mark GV’s 40 years anniversary with 40 personal stories; 20 from Ghana and 20 from Denmark. The stories are chosen to narrate about the past, the present and the future. It is our

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hope that these stories jointly present a fair and balanced image of an NGO that has achieved a great deal since the autumn of 1979, when the first Friendship Groups were formed.

The idea was developed by Johannes Holm. He was a medical doctor and a very active man, who was especially recognised for planning and carrying out the rescue mission that brought the Danish and Norwegian prisoners from the German concentration camps home in white busses. At an age of 76, he thought out a new concept for development cooperation: It should be on an equal footing. Citizens from Danish municipalities were to develop personal friendships with citizens from districts and municipalities in developing countries.

The idea worked. Friendship groups were formed in Silkeborg, Glamsbjerg, Ølgod, Maribo and later also Farsø and Aarhus. In 1980, the year after the formation of the first groups, a joint meeting decided to establish friendship ties between Denmark and towns/villages in the northern part of Ghana. In 1984, the 21-year-old Thomas RavnPedersen was posted in Ghana as a (non-paid!) coordinator.

In the following years, there was a gradual professionalisation of the whole organisation, and in 1988 a small secretariat was established. The Silkeborg folk high school sent out a group of students to Ghana, and Ghanaians travelled to Denmark to participate in e.g. democracy courses.

Later, annual teacher exchange programmes were carried out, where Ghanaian and Danish teachers stayed with each other in their respective countries and through several weeks, followed each other’s work.

In Ghana, the friendship work led to a new form of schooling: School for Life, where children who would otherwise not have gone to school, could learn how to read and write in their own language in just nine months. 230,000 children have gone through School for Life classes.

Ghana Friends has more than 300 members, and many of them are very loyal. Quite a lot of them have been part of the work throughout the 40 years. You meet some of them in this anniversary magazine.

INDHOLD SFL - SCHOOL FOR LIFE

GHANA FRIENDS

The friendship is central 4 The conflicts have strengthened us 6 The Chief of Dalun - You have done a good job 8 Ghana Friends gave me a good foundation 10 We prioritised communication strategies 12

The idea of School for Life School for Life as a peacemaker I was crazy about School for Life My encounter with a school in Ghana My dream was to become a school teacher

GDCA - GHANA DEVELOPING COMMUNITIES ASSOCIATION

DALUN SIMLI CENTRE

The art of balancing I spread good ideas Small loans - great changes

YEFL - YOUTH EMPOWERMENT FOR LIFE

The manual supports young entrepreneurs From baker to photographer From intern to board member Development through art I am proud to be a role model

CLIP- CHANGING LIVES IN INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIPS

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This is how the school started Stories as educational tools 30 years as a handyman Kitchen at full blast

SIMLI RADIO 20 22 24 26 28

A long life with water 30 The well gave us cleaner water 32 Better nutrition is close to my heart 34 Corridors for the cattle makes our life easier 36 Better food for the children with a new factory 38

We just had to have a radio station The radio gives voice to the voiceless

EXCHANGE

Cooperation leads to friendships Hard to return with new ideas Journeys where everything is diffferent The importance of groups From volunteer to active member The students gain insight into Ghanaian culture Communication through singing

COOPERATION

Good at building relations It was my duty to be official Always interacting with the volunteers Collaboration is here to stay

40 42 44 46 48

50 52 54 56

58 60

62 64 66 68 70 72 74

76 78 80 82

GHANA FRIENDS

THE FRIENDSHIP IS CENTRAL The long-term and stable partnership brings special value to the work in Ghana, writes Katrine Skamris – the Chairperson of Ghana Friends since 2015.

I have only known about Ghana Friends for a bit more than 10 years, but for me it is quite a lot, in fact, a third of my life. For the last few years, GV has taken up more and more space in my life, and about a year ago I realised that only now do I begin to feel like a real Ghana friend - it takes time and insight. There are probably many in GV who feel this.

The foundation of GV is a wish for friendship. Our donors have always, over the years, demanded that we should have a partner. For GV, this demand has been a fundamental element in how we wish to work. Not many of us would bother to work voluntarily in 40 degrees heat in your well-deserved holiday, and even pay for it yourself, had it not been because you also get to be with your friends when you go to Ghana.

Friendship as an important part of the name

Friendship in GV is therefore central, and when we had to change the name of the organisation, it was also very clear that, we could not get rid of that part of the name, as it is such a big part of our identity.

Nevertheless, it is very difficult to explain which qualities the friendship brings to the collaboration.

We do it anyway, when we have to write applications to our donors. Why is it that we work with the same organization in Ghana for 40 years?

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Someone might think that we did not do our job properly. Why have we not managed to do the necessary capacity building so that our partner can stand on their own feet? My answer would be that GDCA (Ghana Developing Communities Association) is well-rooted in Northern Ghana, well recognized and highly competent in their execution of projects,

so why should we change partners when we already have something that works well?

The fact that we have to account for our continuous choices does not always seem fair, but such are the conditions when tax money is granted. So instead of making it a problem, I always see it as a positive thing that we need to explain. In this way, as an organization, we have the opportunity to talk about one of our greatest strengths: namely, the long-standing partnership with GDCA and, as the years go by, also with YEfL.

We complement each other’s knowledge

The partnership has made it possible for GV to continue a stable and sustainable development. We have, as an organisation, had to change from making service delivery projects such as constructing wells to today, where our programmes are based on good governance, advocacy and basic human rights.

This change has been very demanding both for our organisation and for our partners in northern Ghana.

We have been able to develop, and very much because of the collaboration where we have been able to work together - and not start from scratch continuously with capacity building. We have been able to develop our projects together with partners so a successful implementation has taken place. And this, because we have been able to complement each other’s knowledge.

During recent years, GV in collaboration with GDCA and YEfL, has been able to make several Best Practice guides, we have had extensive evaluations that have contributed to further work, also for other organisations – and we have implemented our School for Life model as an element in Ghana Education policy on a nationwide scale – these are just a few examples of our successes.

I enjoy telling this story when asked. And in GV I continue to work with the hope that YEfL and GDCA will continue finding value in investing their time with us. Not just as partners, but also as friends.

Few Chairpersons in 40 years: The first Chairman of the Ghana Friendship Groups was Thomas Ravn-Pedersen. He was elected in 1985 and continued till 2006, when Mette Brandt took over.

Since 2015, Katrine Skamris has been the GV Chairperson.

However, for a short period, Leif Frandsen was the Chairman, and so was GV’s Vice-chairman through many years, Erik Fyhn.

THE LONGTERM PARTNERSHIPS ADDS MORE VALUE

KATRINE SKAMRIS

If we had changed partners several times over the last 40 years, I am sure that we would not have obtained so many good, sustainable results. I therefore wish to conclude, that long-term partnerships give good value. We obtain more results with the funds we are allotted, Value for Money – and the results are of such good quality that they live up to the sustainability criteria.

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GHANA FRIENDS

THE CONFLICTS HAVE MADE US STRONGER Only 21 years old, Thomas RavnPedersen was in 1984 sent out as the first coordinator for Ghana Friends. The work in Ghana has to a considerable degree formed his life - he was the chairman of GV from 1985 till 2006, a total of 21 years.

I was really the pioneer when I was stationed in Northern Ghana. I had board and lodging, and after some months I also got a motorbike - but no salary. I was 21 years old. Ghana made a deep impression on me; for I could see that here I could do something. But it was also tough. There was no telephone, and letters were in the post for 6 weeks, and on the whole there were no other whites, so you could never be left in peace.

Malaria - and a turning point

I had been encouraged to settle in one of the friendship towns, and I chose Dalun, for here there was water in the taps and electricity, however not every day. I lived in a house belonging to the water works and shared kitchen and sitting room with two employees at the water works. But they moved out, and then I was alone in the house - and I was a bit homesick. I had malaria several times, and once I was really seriously attacked. But on the third day when I lay sick somebody knocked at the door. � The Chief wants to know how you are�.

This became my turning point. That somebody had kept an eye on me and cared for me immediately made me feel better - and feel at home. I organised the building of a dam and was involved in starting up the construction of the health clinic in Dalun, and I became good friends with the chief of Dalun and with Doctor, Dr Abubakr Al-hassan, the chairman of the Ghanaian sister organisation of Ghana Friends.

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Trust from Danida.

We began to get money from Danida in 1985, and after our third application Danida wanted to come to Ghana to see what we were doing. It led to a very positive evaluation and created a basic trust that has lasted since then. At a time we received grants totalling 50 million DKK within a year. It was really amazing, and I almost cannot comprehend it today, but Danida must have been able to see that we worked differently, and that there was a popular anchoring. But we have also been lucky - and we have never had any scandals.

But in 1993 we met resistance for the first time. A consulting firm could not recommend Danida grants for the long-term courses we had at the High school.

Their claim was that poor farmers could not spend so much time on a high school stay. It came as a bombshell because the high school was lifeblood to GV, and the attitude was that the state should not interfere, but in the end the pragmatists won and we adjusted the duration of the courses to be shorter.

Crisis in the association

That was not the only conflict. There was also Danish criticism of Doctor. Many thought that he had got too much power. It led to a crisis in the association, and the turmoil spread to Danida that started an investigation of the association. This really made us stand together, and in fact we got lots of praise and a pat on the shoulder from Danida that for the first time acknowledged the friendship dimension in an official evaluation. So the conflicts helped us move on - and always strengthened.My stay in Ghana has formed all my life. It was also in Ghana that I met Annelie, who is the mother of my four children. And I learned how important equality is in cooperation. Yes, we are black and we are white, but we are together in this. I also learnt in Ghana that in a conflict you must avoid that somebody loses face, and that sometimes you might choose not to say things very direct. So yes, for certain I have taken up some of the Ghanaian culture.

THOMAS RAVN-PEDERSEN

A LONG CAREER AS A JOURNALIST

After his stay in Ghana, Thomas Ravn-Pedersen held about 100 lectures, and communication has become his life career, for he chose to become a journalist and it led to six years employment at Radio East Jutland. Later Thomas worked for 10 years as a communication manager for DanChurchAid and 4 years as documentary editor at the Danish Broadcasting Company. For the last 9 years he has been the Director of the World’s Best News.

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GHANA FRIENDS

THE CHIEF OF DALUN SAYS: YOU HAVE DONE A GOOD JOB Ghana Friends has contributed to the development of the whole northern Ghana according to the Chief of Dalun.

During 40 years he has had close contact with the Danes. Sometimes their approach made him wonder, but all in all, he is extremely satisfied with the collaboration. ”I remember when we had visitors from Denmark forty years ago. It was Thomas RavnPedersen (who later became the chairman of Ghana Friendship groups). He said that they wished to build friendships. He lived at the waterworks and cycled to the villages in the area. I gave him some land, because in our tradition, we say: ”when someone bathes your back, there must also be someone who bathes your chest”. In other words: If you give something, you can also expect to receive something in return, and I could see the vision: that this friendship could bring development to our area and that Ghana Friends could show us the way.

And now, after 40 years, I see a lot of development. Illiteracy was widespread, but then the visitors came and talked with the farmers, and explained how the farmers in Denmark managed, and that lead to a higher yield. We also had a lot of unrest among the young people, but now they have their own piece of land and their own centre, and many have been educated. I am very pleased with the lively and energetic young people, and I attend meetings with them and participate in decision-making.

Our youth is able to do a lot.

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It was also visionary to establish the Simli Centre, the centre has given space to a lot of activities, but unfortunately, it is not quite as active as it has been. We ought to do as you do in Denmark, finance that sort of thing through taxation.

The radio at the centre broadcasts daily, and via this the population gets a lot of interesting information, and even the government listens to the radio.

I was the first Chief in Denmark

After some time, I was asked whether I should like to come to Denmark to see the country.

Later other Chiefs travelled to Denmark, but I was the first one. One of my sons married a Danish woman, so in a way I am part of the Danish family.

As a Chief, I have many roles. I am a farmer, and I have helped establish new farms so that young men can work. I have also given land to Fulanis, so that they can settle with their cattle.

I have visitors all day, and I also have to coordinate many things here in our community, but I also have to spend time meeting the family, which I do mornings and evenings. I have to keep order, but should there be any serious occurrences, then the police will be called.

Finally, I want to say that you have done so much good for our community, and the centre has contributed to the development of the whole of northern Ghana. Yes, in fact, it has changed people’s lives.

THE CHIEF OF DALUN

THE CHIEFS HAD MORE AUTHORITY When Ghana Friends, long ago, started working in northern Ghana, contacts often went via the Chiefs in the villages. They were the traditional authority and thus a good inroad to the communities. Since then, the work has changed, so that the collaboration is with the local authorities and politicians, and thus also much more with the democratically chosen leaders. The power of a Chief is much related to the fact that he has rights over the land that he, for example, can choose to give away or lease. In northern Ghana only the Chiefs can have horses, they are a symbol of his power.

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GHANA FRIENDS

WORKING FOR GHANA FRIENDS GAVE ME A GOOD FOUNDATION Birgitte Rasmussen worked for five years as a ”liaison coordinator” in Ghana. It made the foundation for her further career, first as a programme manager for IBIS, later as the regional manager for IBIS in all West Africa - and now as a manager in DanChurchAid.

Embassy - I have met very many different people.

I also stayed in Dalun during the serious conflict between the Dagombas and the Konkombas. It was very severe, and for a period we had to keep the ethnic groups separated when we had short courses, but at a time we decided that now it was time for conciliation. I was never afraid, but it was a strenuous time.

As a child I liked very much the TV programs about the conditions of children in other countries, and when I was 14 years old, I became a member of both Greenpeace and Amnesty International. I had always had a dream of working with development aid, so in 1996 when I saw that Ghana Friends looked for a ”liaison coordinator”, I applied. I had been in Ghana in connection with my university studies, and I had just given in my thesis in cultural geography.

The day before my final exam I was called for an interview - and the same evening a telephone call told me that I had got the job, so I was happy when I was examined - and the result was good.

The time in Dalun really taught me to understand the problems that the poorest people are facing, but also how much can be done with limited means and how much you can achieve by organising people, e.g. the women in a village.

We really stood face to face with the problems, so I got them under my skin.

The job was for two years, but because of my young age GV would as a beginning only give me one year, but that was OK for me - and in the end I stayed for five years. I had my own house in Dalun, where I built up very good cooperation with Tanko, who was the programme coordinator and the person with the overall responsibility.

I was the link to Denmark, but I was also an integrated part of the daily management and participated, among other things, in establishing local loan groups.

Constantly visitors

The contact to Denmark was difficult, much communication was still by snail mail, and often we had to wait for two months for feedback.

But constantly we had visitors, it might be the Glamsbjerg group or the Farsø group, Silkeborg Highschool, students or people from the

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Single in a male dominated society

To be a single woman of about 30 in a male dominated society was sometimes a challenge, it was a bit extraordinary. I have met men who would not shake hands with me, and I think I have had 1000 offers of marriage. But I have used humour, kept both feet on the ground, stuck to my own values, and explained that I had chosen to live as I did - and in that way I gained respect.

After five years I did not prolong the contract, but the five years with GV had given me good ballast, and laid out the foundation for my working life. I had just returned to Denmark, when I was offered the job as programme manager for IBIS, based in Tamale. Here I was for two and a half years before I applied for and got the job as regional manager for IBIS in all West Africa, now with office in Accra. On a trip to Sierra Leone I met Rooben, and we lived together in Accra and had our son Iruven in 2006. He grew up in Ghana, but now we live in Copenhagen where I work for DanChurchAid as the manager of strategy development and quality assurance.

BIRGITTE RASMUSSEN

GDCP - THE FIRST DEVELOPMENT PROJECT OF GV

Small photo: Birgitte in Dalun at the time she was working as a Liaison Coordinator for Ghana Friends.

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Ghanaian Danish Communities Programme (GDCP) was GV’s first development project in Ghana. It began as early as 1984 and received support from Danida through 6 phases (1986-2009). GDCP helped local communities so that they could help themselves. GDCP also managed a folk high school and an institution for loans, primarily for women, and a local radio station. GDCA took over in 2009and has continued the activities since then.

GHANA FRIENDS

WE PRIORITISED COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES Newsletters, website, press releases.

Today, Ghana Friends has become much more extrovert - and Annegrete Larsen and Poul Kattler helped promote that trend. In 1986-88, they were posted in Dalun and very keen to document the efforts in Ghana. Poul Kattler says:

In connection with the 1994 nationwide fundraising event (in the form of a Christmas calendar), we even got a website. It was an advanced one with both flash movies and a small game. We were on cloud nine, because we were invited to various institutions to tell others about our website.

When we were hired, part of the agreement was that we had to drive a new land rover pickup truck to Ghana. We spent 7-8 days en route, driving through the desert. In North Africa we experienced high piles of snow in the Atlas Mountains and a heat wave in the Sahara, all in the same day - and in the back of the car were our mattresses. We quickly settled in Dalun, and our two years there was an exciting time, with the democratization of Ghana seriously underway.

It is hard to imagine today, but the communication back home to Denmark consisted of telex and letters, and Ghana Friends was not always an easy employer, for even small things had to be dealt with by a special committee.

There have always been people in GV with storytelling talents who could give lectures, but back then there were no plans of building press contacts and the like, and I still feel that GV does not fully recognize that we have something interesting to say to the public, because even though we are not a large organization, we are so well founded in Ghana that we could give stories from the country a great deal of weight.

Our activities in connection with the movie Gold Coast (a Danish film about the period of slave trade in West Africa) is an obvious example. Before the opening night of the film we issued press releases, and I was proud that thus we became up-to-date.

Lately we have been involved in podcasting - a great idea in my opinion.

Book, pictures and sound recordings

When we came back to Denmark in 1988, Annegrete started working as a high school teacher, while I became an information officer at the Light Technology Society. Six years later, I started at the ”Experimentarium”, where I am an exhibition developer and also responsible for our membership magazine. I was also responsible for our websites, so for me volunteer and professional work has been mutually stimulated. I use things in my volunteer work that I have learnt in my work and vice versa.

When we came home in 1988, we felt that we had so much to tell, so relatively soon afterwards I started making a newsletter, because it didn’t exist at that time. Later, GV also formed an information committee that I joined – well in line with my previous interests.

In addition to Ghana Friends and my work at the exhibition hall ”Experimentarium”, I am also very active in getting the climate-friendly night trains back on track in Europe - and I am a rambling guide in summer. I am probably a slightly special type, because I cannot help but be fully committed to the issues I fight for with great enthusiasm.

We wrote reports to GV and discovered that we were pretty good at writing, so we also started writing a book about, among other things, agriculture, traditions and activities during a year – the book was actually printed when we got home, but in quite a small quantity.

We also took a lot of pictures, and we made audio recordings with our Walkman. At home, we were able to create an audio / slideshow that can be viewed on YouTube to this very day.

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Press releases and podcasts

Poul worked in Ghana from 1986 to 1988 (small photo)

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POUL KATTLER

GHANA DEVELOPING COMMUNITIES ASSOCIATION UDVEKSLING

THE ART OF BALANCING It takes diplomatic skills to work in the intersection between a Ghanaian and a Danish board, as both sides have strong wishes and demands. Alhaji Osman is a master at this balancing act. Since 2001 he has been the Executive Director of what is now called GDCA, Ghana Developing Communities Association.

My first experience with Ghana Friends, or Ghana Friendship Groups as it was called at that time, was a meeting in Aarhus in 1997. There was quite an argument, in Danish, so I did not understand very much. The disagreement concerned the issue of starting a new programme in Ghana that GV might be responsible for. I did understand, however, that the real issue was, how the work in Ghana could benefit most people. Since then, there have been many other discussions, but I have learnt that discussions are OK and they are an essential element of the partnership.

If a problem arises, my attitude is: you are either part of the problem, or you are part of the solution, and very early on, I said to myself, that I would prefer to be part of the solution. So yes, I am a bit of a diplomat, and maybe that is why I am still Executive Director.

In the beginning I was insecure. I wanted to do my job as well as possible, and chose to seek the advice of the chief of Dalun. I did not know him beforehand, but I went to see him, and some of his most valuable advice was that I should believe in myself, take kindly to counseling, and be honest.

For a while I called him once a week - and we are still in contact. Only once have I disagreed with his advice, and that was when we found irregularities in some accounts. The Chief’s advice was that we should handle it ourselves and not involve the police, but I felt that I had to show leadership and involve the police. And I am glad that I did. On the whole, it is important to send clear signals as a leader.

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An unusual set-up

I work in a structure where there is both a Ghanaian board and a Danish Board. This is a very unusual set-up, because in other organisations it is more a donor – beneficiary relationship, but then they do not have this real partnership that we have.

And not least a partnership with longstanding relations. Many other programmes in Ghana are very short. The set-up gives rise to a lot of discussions, but it also gives great flexibility, so all in all, I think that it gives a lot of energy, and I am glad that we meet face to face at least once a year, which is definitely better than Skype-meetings.

Regarding communication: It is a lot better now.

Earlier on it was a problem calling or sending e-mail. But it did happen that we did something here that could create uncertainty in Denmark, so I sometimes sent an e-mail and asked for advice, but I was afraid of opening my mail when there was an answer, and I always had to consider from whom it came. And when we were to reply, we sometimes discussed, word by word, what we should write, so it could take hours writing an answer by e-mail. We also discussed the timing, when to send and to whom?

I found it hard in the beginning with all the decisions, I had to make, but I am more relaxed now, and it has been a great relief, that we formulated a common strategy in 2008.

It can be difficult to explain our structure to other organisations, but I am glad that the word ”friendship” is included in the name change. We took the liberty to comment by saying that we really found that the word “friend” should be part of the name. When we translate something about our work in the local language, we always use the word ”friendship” because that is what people understand and at the same time, it underlines that we are not talking about one part working for the other.

ALHAJI OSMAN

ALSO ACTIVE IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION

Alhaji Osman has an agricultural education, but he has also been a high school teacher. Last year, he also stepped into character in the fight against corruption, because on December 9th, 2018, the day that was designated World AntiCorruption Day, he headed a major demonstration in Tamale: About 1,000 people from approx. twenty-five organizations marched 10 km in protest against corruption.

And as Alhaji Osman said in his speech while pointing around: Corruption begins with me, and with you, you and you.

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GHANA DEVELOPING COMMUNITIES ASSOCIATION UDVEKSLING

I SPREAD GOOD IDEAS ”Advocacy” has become a key word in development work. And this is exactly what Mohammed Abdul-Jabaru is responsible for. His job is to make sure that good ideas are spread widely and used to the benefit of the local communities.

I work with a variety of subjects, right from new farming methods to absenteeism among teachers, depending on what the people in the villages see as a problem. Sometimes the villages contact me - then it is usually an urgent matter. Other times I hear about the problems when I visit the villages. We have many groups out there, and sometimes I’m just out there to visit one of the groups. My work is to assess whether the issue is about a local problem or a more general one. In order to do this, we have to do some research before we decide what to do.

New farming methods

Some of the things we try to spread are new agricultural methods - and that is something that really interests local farmers. We get an expert to talk about a new technique, but that’s not enough. Farmers are sceptical. They want to see results, so we cultivate an area using the new method and a similar area without, and only when they can see that it works are they ready to change their ways. For example, we are currently working with organic cultivation and with composting without the use of chemicals, but we also work with methods of sowing and better storage of the harvest, all in the light of the climate changes that have made the weather more unpredictable - now we get rain of shorter duration or very heavy rain.

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I’m not an expert on agriculture, but I am an expert on advocacy, and I am therefore also the key person who can find the experts. The farmers are good at sharing knowledge among themselves, but I can help disseminate even wider and thus strengthen and improve the work they are doing in the districts. This happens, among other things, by social media that we are now seriously learning to use. We were lacking in knowledge, so last year experts from Tamale Technical University gave us a course on social media. Now we use it a lot in our advocacy work - everything from Facebook to Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp. Nevertheless, radio is still a media we depend on. We broadcast from several stations, some have wider range than others, but we make sure that we use the same jingle, whether it is a programme about Empowerment for Life or Youth Speak Up. Radio is broadcast in people’s own language, and we can see that radio is good at mobilising people, because they react by sending text messages - radio is still also a good way to get in touch with duty bearers.

I can see that our work really has an impact and that our groups have discovered their potential; and much of my work is exactly to look at the organisation of the groups. For example, to investigate whether they can obtain some funding by opening a bank account, but also by checking the manuals we work with – are they up-to-date?

Mohammed Abdul-Jabaru was employed in 2012 to work with advocacy for GDCA - Ghana Developing Communities Association. He holds a Master in Community Health and Development.

MOHAMMED ABDUL JABARU

ADVOCACY AT ALL LEVELS

Advocacy happens at all levels. It can be when you are in the villages and promote the idea that children should go to school, or when, on a national scale, you try to influence politicians and the national programmes. At the local level, it is about making people critical, giving them access to local authorities and generally supporting them, so that they themselves can exercise advocacy.

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GHANA DEVELOPING COMMUNITIES ASSOCIATION UDVEKSLING

SMALL LOANS - GREAT CHANGES Fati Alhassan comes along with a big box on her head. It is the money box managed by the community’s Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA).

Fati Alhassan, Martha Iddrisu, Abdulai Fuseina, Abibata Yakubu and J.K. Mahama explain the importance of this system for themselves and for their village, Jimli: The group meets every Monday, and all transactions take place in the presence of all the members. There are three locks on the box, and the keys are held by three different members of the board. A member can start saving anything between 2 and 10 cedis, but not everyone is able to contribute the same amount, so individual agreements are made.

If you want to take a loan, we check the book to see whether there is security, and then you have to pay the loan back after three months. As an example, if you borrow 200 cedis, then you have to pay 20 cedis interest. You have to say what the money is for. It could be to pay school fees or medicine if a family member is ill. We know each other quite well, so we evaluate and make sure, before the money is given out, including how much the individual can borrow; and we have a management committee who takes care of that.

Some have also gotten a loan so that they can expand their business or start selling soya milk at the market.

In the past, you would go to your friends if you needed some money and tell them stories. Now you just go to the group, so that has really made a difference. Before we had the Savings and Loans box, the children had no chance of going to Senior High School.

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There are three Savings and Loans groups here in Jimli. Our group is a mixed group with both men and women, we are 21 women and 4 men, and if the men are members of the group, they can also get a loan.

-1 cedi was equal to approx. 1.40 DKK at the beginning of 2019

POPULAR SAVINGS AND LOANS GROUPS There are about 190 Savings and Loans Associations in the villages, and frequently, new ones are established. A group can be up to 25 people, as this size has proven to work well. If more people wish to join, the group will split into two.

Initially, the Savings and Loans groups consisted of women only, but the groups themselves wished that they should be mixed. Before a man can become a member, however, an assessment takes place, and not all men are considered suitable to join. The experience with mixed groups is good. The men appear to serve as a stabilising factor in the groups.

The Savings and Loans groups replace the microcredits that it was previously possible to obtain. They relied on money from outside, whereas the Savings and Loans are based on funds the members themselves raise. It is virtually impossible for poor rural people to obtain a bank loan, as few can provide any kind of guarantee.

FATI ALHASSAN

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YOUTH EMPOWERMENT FOR LIFE

THE MANUAL SUPPORTS YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS Leila Kæmsgaard Pagh Schmidt has overcome her fear of flying and has now travelled to Ghana three times.

She works with entrepreneurship and has developed a manual for entrepreneurs. It has until now supported 270 young Ghanaians to start up initiatives.

I have a background as an engineer and work with initiatives and entrepreneurship at the VIA University in Horsens. During my studies, I got to know Lise Grauenkær from the GV secretariat.

She asked me several times whether I would join the Youth Committee of GV and ensured me that I wouldn’t have to go to Ghana but could be active in Denmark. Having had a very bad experience 10 years ago, I suffered from fear of flying, so I did not want to go to Ghana. Anyway, Lise succeeded in planting a seed in me, because she suggested a project that could be used in Ghana, where they were already running courses on entrepreneurship.

Making a mark in the world

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Besides my degree as an engineer, I have a master’s in psychology, so I have one foot in natural sciences and one in the humanities. VIA University has students from all over the world and part of our strategy is to make a mark in the world. I asked my research professor whether a project in Ghana could be possible and she thought it extremely interesting. It was yet another encouragement and a push to overcome my fear of flying. I have now been in Ghana three times.

The first time was in 2015 - a research trip. I visited a lot of villages, sitting under trees talking with many young people, typically in groups, but also individually – sometimes with an interpreter, other times without. I had prepared a questionnaire guide and the young people were very open. I visited the Polytechnic College in Tamale and the University in Accra, where they work with entrepreneurship.

Upon my return, I analysed the material and five obstacles appeared to be common to most of the young people. One of them was ‘waiting for the rain’, meaning that they all the time wait for something from outside. Another obstacle is the lack of trust in others. Lise and I began discussing how to change the mind-set of the young people and we developed a manual with eight steps and exercises. It was ready to be tested during my second visit to Ghana, where we trained 15-20 facilitators from YEfL (Youth Empowerment for Life) in a week and worked through the whole manual.

Skilled Facilitators

The facilitators totally bought into the manual from Day 1. They were very skilled and receptive of learning. The following week, they used the manual in a bootcamp for 25 young people from the same town. I was there as a backup, but they were able to do everything by themselves.

It was a lot of fun. I had been anxious whether the manual would work, because it was very different from earlier manuals they had used. The whole approach and way of thinking was different.

Until now, the young people were using the old approach, making business plans at a very early stage. It often resulted in completely unrealistic plans. Using our approach, we turned things around and made the business plans one of the last steps in the process.

Preparing for my third visit to Ghana, I worked on smaller adjustments in the manual and the exercises. Now, 270 young people have attended the bootcamps and have followed the model – almost half boys, half girls. I have received very positive feedback. The young people go through an amazing process of change in perceptions, looking at their attitudes before and after a bootcamp. For me, it has been a wild process and I have learned a lot, both in terms of methods, but also in terms of research.

Leila visiting Karaga Youth Center.

LEILA KÆMSGAARD PAGH SCHMIDT

THE MODEL IS DEVELOPED AND EXPANDED CONTINUOUSLY

The manual for young entrepreneurs is not static but is developed and expanded continuously as experiences are collated and needs arise. For instance, Leila Schmidt has realised the need for a followup course; and the manual has been expanded to include a module on financial accounting. She is considering a special module for farmers, because there are so many of them in Northern Ghana.

Also courses in ‘social entrepreneurship’ inspired by the cooperative movement are being considered.

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YOUTH EMPOWERMENT FOR LIFE

FROM BAKER TO PHOTOGRAPHER I had to start something quite new when my mother died – and I was fortunate to be accepted on one of the courses for young entrepreneurs, says Abukari Musah. I used to be a baker, now I work as a photographer.

My brother, my mother and I had a bakery, we baked for people in our town, Sang. But everything changed when my mother died. We could no longer manage to bake, everything fell apart, and I felt a great pressure so I chose to change to something quite different. So now the bakery is empty and abandoned, but I do hope that it will start up again at some point.

I am 27 or 28 years old. I am not quite sure, but already in 2005 I had started taking photographs.

At that time it was with film, but now it is all digital. It was photo I wanted to work with, I could feel it. I was part of a youth group, and it was through this that I was lucky to be chosen for one of the courses on entrepreneurship.

We really learnt a lot, and I use much of my new knowledge - for example, I learnt how to do accounting and how to build good relations with my customers, and how I can keep them by offering extra service. And it works! For we have two photographers here in Sang, and most people come to me!

It was also on the course that I learnt to buy equipment, so now I am the owner of this booth by the main street and the big colour printer – and I have managed this without taking a loan, because apart from being a photographer, I am also a farmer, and it is the income from the farm that I have used. I work four – five months a year on my farm, but I can easily combine the work with taking photos.

I do not take photos for the press, but I am quite ready to go to weddings and funerals to take pictures, and then I print them and take them out to people. I always print so many copies that the

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families can distribute them when I have delivered them.

There are also many customers here who come to have photocopies made, or print pictures they have taken themselves, because even though many have mobile phones and take pictures themselves, they cannot print them, and then they come to me.

YOUNG PEOPLE WITH MANY IDEAS Unemployment among young people in Northern Ghana is sky high. One of the ways out of unemployment is to start one’s own business, something that Ghana Friends work for in conjunction with YEfL, Youth Empowerment for Life.

So far, 400 young people have been trained as entrepreneurs, and many have started their own businesses. The training takes place at boot camps and largely follows a manual developed by Leila Schmidt from Via University.

The young people have many ideas some start repairing bicycles, others undertake to fix and repair installations, some wish to keep chickens or buy rice, which is then sold in smaller portions.

One tries his luck as a buyer of shoes, while many women embark on food projects. On the courses, they learn, among other things, the importance of having some savings, that money must be set aside for maintenance and that their business must create value for someone if it is to be viable.

ABUKARI MUSAH

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Abukari Musah runs his business from this booth in the main street of Sang.

YOUTH EMPOWERMENT FOR LIFE

FROM INTERN TO BOARD MEMBER By coincidence, Michael Hansson became an intern with GV. In a short time, he went from being an intern to becoming a board member in GV. I had heard about Ghana Friends before, because GV featured on a long list of possible internship placements for students of anthropology. However, I got an internship with IBIS in Liberia – or I thought I did. Then there was an outbreak of Ebola in the country and the trip was cancelled. I had already given notice on my apartment, so I was without a place to stay and without an internship placement – it was a bit of a crisis.

Important conversation during a hitchhiking trip

Before knowing about the cancelation of the Liberia trip, I went hitchhiking to Norway.

Around Aarhus, Leif Rasmussen - one of the GV veterans - took me in his car. He was only going to Randers, but we had time for a very good conversation about Liberia and Ghana Friends.

It led to me sending an unsolicited application to GV. After a short while I got a message: “Of course, you are going to Ghana”.

It was great, because GV is working with some of the same areas that would have been my tasks in Liberia – especially the work with CommunityBased Organisations and how to mobilise local organisations and communities. I worked with GV for five months, living in a compound in Tamale, surrounded by Ghanaian families.

Upon my return, I started my master’s degree, and continued as a volunteer in GV, working to revive the GV Youth Committee. I participated in the Annual General Meeting and was elected for the Board of GV. This is to say - the road from being an intern to becoming a Board representative was not long.

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I am educated as an anthropologist. After my education, I planned to work for an NGO. It was, however, difficult to find a paid job, so now I work for Group IT, a part of the finance administration in the city of Copenhagen. It was not exactly written in the stars that I was going to work with IT, but conversely I can see that coding and IT can fit well into a development context, perhaps also in a program related to GV?

Youth energy in the organisation

I was received very positively as a young person in GV. But it also required some willpower, because undoubtedly, many GV members have been active volunteers for so many years that they have a real ownership. Socially, I felt that many were of another generation, but I also experienced the openness and will to attract more young people. I was looked upon as a fresh and new input.

I have now been active in GV for about five years and I feel ownership and have started understanding the DNA of GV. I also think that I have a lot of influence. For instance, I was part of the work with the Best Practice Report on the Youth Speak Up programme and represented GV at the annual strategic partner meetings in 2018.

My experience is that if you take initiatives in GV, you can get things through. I was for instance also part of launching the idea of GV producing some podcasts.

In the first Board meetings, I paid attention to what inputs to provide and how things were done, because at the time, I did not have much experience with the work in a Board.

Parallel with my work in GV, I have been an adult friend in Save the Children Youth and now I am active in the Danish Refugee Council Youth, where I am also a board member.

I have been in Ghana three times – one of the times representing GV, which I was honoured and happy to do. I was even chairing the joint programme meeting. It is great to get that kind of responsibility, because I thrive with responsibility. It showed that we, the youth, are also appreciated in Denmark.

MICHAEL HANSSON

PODCAST ABOUT THE MILLENNIALS OF AFRICA

The millennials of Africa is a podcast project from Ghana Friends, produced together with Anders Bjerrum and Caroline NørkjÌr.

Through five episodes, we follow their adventure and meetings with the millennials of Ghana. What do they do? What are their dreams? Are they at all different from us? In addition, how does the future look for the millions of young people? You can find the Podcast Series on www.ghanavenskab.dk

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Visiting the crocodile farm in Bolgatanga. Michael Hansson together with Kamal Deen Habib, So Abapa Boateng and Akolibila Julius.

YOUTH EMPOWERMENT FOR LIFE

DEVELOPMENT THROUGH ART The artist, Phuc van Dang, joined the Youth Committee of GV and is now teaching children and young people in Ghana how to visualize their everyday life and thereby contribute to their own development.

I came to Denmark with my family, back when I was 10 years old. We were refugees who had fled by boat from Vietnam. As a child, my mother always told me to pass on my knowledge and skills to others – and I had drawing skills. I joined the Youth Committee of GV, and the first meeting was very inspiring to me. Members of the committee were very different, but we had a common focus – to be part of a project in Northern Ghana. I thought it was something, I would like to be part of.

I am a visual person and asked myself how I could give stories a visual life. I wanted to think ‘out of the box’ and see what such a process might lead to. It was important for me to start with a narrative or a story and give it a visual expression.

When I first came to Ghana, I realized that drawing was not at all prioritised in the schools.

The teachers were exclusively focused on teaching the children to read and do math, but not at all on drawing. I thought it was a pity that children were not shown other ways to learn.

When you visualize your daily life, you develop – and that became my entry to Ghana.

I was asked to join the new project; ‘Fighting Child Hunger’, and it was very educative and exciting, also for me. In Denmark, we work with the food pyramid. But can we go to Ghana and use this pyramid? I don’t think so. I therefore created some picture cards before going: Bananas, oranges – very beautiful cards. But the children did not understand my cards – so

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together with a Ghanaian teacher, we had to start all over, and I was really learning something myself. You cannot assume that things you know from Denmark work somewhere else, like ‘this is how a banana looks like’. You need to ask in the context, what is the local fruit and how is it used.

Banana is mostly grown in southern Ghana and they do not look at all like the ones we buy in Denmark. It was my mistake that I thought I knew a lot. I then used two days to change the picture cards – to visualize the fruits and vegetables that children in Northern Ghana recognize. And then I thought, we should start over. The GV programme had selected some children that I could work with. They were given permission to paint the whole school. Firstly, we talked about what they eat at home and we painted those fruits. I like to connect things so that art becomes publicly accessible – it could have been street art, but this became wall-art. Everybody can see what it is.

Active and proud children

We took our point of departure in nutrition, and before starting to draw, we talked about vitamins, proteins etc. The children also tried to model the vegetables – in this process, we also used what was available around us. We made play dough out of flour, water and fruit colour.

The children told me afterwards, that they had experienced that learning could be fun. It was different from just writing what the teacher shows you. In this process, they were active and at the same time proud of what they did. An art-process like this is for everybody – children and adults, but I like to work with children and young people.

I hope that Ghana will include art even though it is a poor country. Using an art process, you may also include pupils with a different learning style and not only those that are good at booklearning. Life is bigger than tests and test results.

PHUC VAN DANG

ART WITHOUT EXPENSIVE MATERIALS

In June 2019 Phuc van Dang facilitated a workshop for 25 young people The culmination was a street art event on a busy streetcorner in downtown Tamale.

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I think it has a larger perspective. Art is communication – there is a story behind what you communicate to others, and in the process from story to expression, development happens for more than just the individual. Art is also easily accessible if you use what is around you to create it. You can just use a stick and draw in the sand. We do not need a lot of big expensive material - that is not what art is about. When you use a drawing, dancing or music, a new story is expressed from the original one.

YOUTH EMPOWERMENT FOR LIFE

I AM PROUD TO BE A ROLE MODEL I used to be a quiet girl says 30-year old Helen Udanbila Kayil. I am not a quiet girl anymore! I am committed to working for a better society. I am often so busy that I do not see my own family.

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time with my grandfather. At that time I couldn’t dream of speaking in a group. I was a quiet girl. Now I am 30, and I am neither afraid of speaking to a crowd nor of seeking the attention of authorities or politicians. I have learnt to enter an office in a self-confident way, but I have also become more patient and persevering, and I will not let myself be beaten if I come across resistance or critique for I feel that I work for the whole community, not just myself or my family.

My turning point came when I joined a youth group, and in collaboration with Ghana Friends became active in Youth Speak Up. I received training in journalism and radio production – and in using social media such as Facebook and WhatsApp, and now I work several days a week for Radio Gaakii in Saboba where I live. My first transmission was about the poor sanitation in our area.

I live near the border to Togo, and we also have listeners on the other side of the border. Ghana Friends is very popular in my area, in fact, so popular that we have a song where we thank Ghana Friends for all that they have done here in the Northern Region.

Teacher at a girls’ school

The radio is very popular, and I often meet someone who says: ”Oh, I heard you on the radio” and in that way, I have become a local role model, and I am in fact quite proud of that.

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I have busy days. I get up around 5.30, and by 7 o’clock I’m ready to go to work, but before that I have listened to the news on the radio. I am a trained teacher and teach every day at a girl’s school up to 2.30 in the afternoon. When I come home, I usually relax for an hour or so, but that is not always possible. Some days I do not see my family at all. I live at home and have two brothers and a sister – but no boyfriend. My parents are farmers, and fortunately, my whole family supports me. Sometimes they remind me to take it easy, and my mother thinks that I have too many worries.

Besides working at the radio, I also work for Ghana Red Cross and often visit women’s groups in the villages – I travel by motorbike, mostly weekends, which is when I also go to church and am part of the Sunday school and the church choir. In Red Cross we are busy with a project that aims to convince the women in the villages that it is safer to deliver at the hospital instead of at home.

I am also part of the youth parliament we have created here in Northern Region – an idea that actually came from us young people. I represent the minority group, and before we meet, we gather information about the subjects we will discuss. This may for example be teenage pregnancies. I think that democratic solutions are preferable to rebellion.

It may sound like a lot of things I’m involved in, but I like my life. I learn new things every day and generally feel that I can develop my potential – so I am sincerely grateful for the possibilities I have been given.

HELEN UDANBILA KAYIL

YOUTH SPEAK UP Thanks to funds from the Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s Fundraising event in 2015, Ghana Friends, together with other organizations in northern Ghana, was able to offer 25 young people a training that enabled them to produce radio and feature on social media. Youth Speak Up became the project’s name. Radio is the most widespread media in Ghana, and through five radio stations the young people reach the entire Northern Region. In some broadcasts, politicians are held responsible ”on air”, i.e. on direct radio.

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CHANGING LIVES IN INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIPS

A LONG LIFE WITH WATER Development of a village means water.

Kurt Klitten worked with water supply at the Danish Embassy in Accra from 1999 till 2003. In that way he got in contact with GV, and this was a real boost to the construction of wells. A total of125 wells were constructed.

From DANIDA I knew Erik Sjørslev, who was the Danida ”Mr Water”, and he encouraged me to become a member of Ghana Friendship groups as the organisation was called in those days. A fruitful cooperation about establishing of wells in the villages started. We also had great use of another experienced water engineer, Bent Kjellerup.

I completed my education as an engineer in 1964, but it was quite accidental that I started working with geology, especially hydrogeology - geological knowledge about ground water.

But I have always been interested in geology and water, so in the middle of the 1970s when I read about a UN conference on water supply in the developing countries where DANIDA was involved I contacted them to hear if they might need a geological perspective on water.

Down through hard rock

They were interested in that so I made courses where among other things I took in some consulting engineer firms. The courses were about hydrogeology and geophysics in practice.

Via the courses I got some useful contacts.

Moreover I participated in Danida missions to several of their water supply projects.

At that time I was employed as lecturer at DTU, The Technical University of Denmark, but twice I was granted leave to participate in Danida projects for water supply to villages in Sri Lanka and Southern India.

A fruitful co-operation

In 1999 I was employed as sector coordinator for the DANIDA water supply programme at the Embassy in Ghana. Here I was contacted by CLIP (at that time: Community Life Improvement Programme) - Clip had been started by Ghana Friends, and the new water team wanted help. But in the beginning I only had time to send them some articles about establishment of village water supply.

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Under all of Ghana there is hard rock, and the CLIP method was to dig down to the rock.

Often you reach it after only 2-3 meters. With compressor hand drilling equipment holes are drilled about 1 meter into the rock, after which this will be blasted away with loose dynamite.

You will drill about 1 meter deeper after each blasting. At the end of the day the well would then be pumped dry, and the rule of thumb was that if there were 2 meters of water in the well the next morning, it was deep enough.

CLIP learnt how important it was to contact the village in the right way - that means first contact the elders. They often had a wish as to where the well should be placed, just as there could be other considerations to take about the placing of the well. There might be holy parts in the village, or there were garbage or latrine sections where the wells should not be placed.

In 2005 I retired from GEUS, where I had been employed since 1993. I did not retire because I did not like my job. In fact it was my whole life, so I continued, only now without salary. I was more free, so I have been in Ghana many times since then, partly as adviser for Ghanaian PhD students at “University of Ghana” and partly representing the CLIP committee of GV. I am now 79, so it has been a long life with water.

I have 8 grandchildren, 6 of them have celebrated their confirmation with a trip to one of the countries where I have worked, so we have been on combined culture and education trips to both Sri Lanka, Southern India and Ghana.

Big photo: Preparing for a new well back in 2004 - the blast.

KURT KLITTEN

THE RAIN IS MORE UNPREDICTABLE

The rainfall in Northern Ghana is between 1000 and 1100 millimetres a year. “So you cannot say that there is not enough rain. But the problem is that now it will fall more scattered and sparsely, and so more unpredictably for the farmers�, Kurt Klitten says. He has now engaged himself in a university project around the Nasia river which runs through some of the districts where GDCA has activities. This project will for now establish three wells to test whether that can increase the farming production. Therefore such wells are placed in the fields and not in or near the villages.

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CHANGING LIVES IN INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIPS

THE WELL GAVE US CLEANER WATER The creation of water committees, drilling for water and the construction of wells, were important tasks in the first years of Ghana Friends in Ghana.

Later on, checking, supervising and renovation of the many wells followed.

Bawa Mahia is a member of the water committee in the local community of Mbatinga in the Mion district.

It is hard to find water in this area; we had to walk a long way to fetch it in a pond, so we decided to create a water committee. I joined, and we still have the committee. After many discussions we contacted the local authorities and asked for support. We were informed that we had to somehow finance five percent of the expenses ourselves in order to feel ownership of the well.

We chose someone from the committee who had knowledge of water, but a geologist also came onboard. We drilled many places, but this drilling was the only one that gave water. It is 36 meters deep, and the water is cleaner than the water from the pond, and the well gives a good yield.

Still there can be problems. There is enough water in the rainy season, but in the dry season there can be problems, so the women can only use the well in the morning, and then again in the evening. There is a lock on the well the rest of the day in order to give the water a chance to build up.

I cannot really remember when the well was established, but I think it was around 1986, and it was a Canadian NGO that did it. Later, CLIP came along and renovated it.

We keep an eye on the water to check whether it looks clean, and we taste it to check that it is OK. The women are only allowed to use the water for drinking or cooking. Water for the livestock must be fetched at the pond, and it is also by the pond that clothes are washed.

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125 WELLS ESTABLISHED In the period 1997-2011, 125 wells were established in three districts in northern Ghana. It was a branch of Ghana Friends, CLIP that was responsible for the establishment of the wells. CLIP used to be short for Community Life Improvement Programme. Now it is Changing Lives in Innovative Partnerships – still CLIP. The funding came through Danida.

The wells were created by digging down to solid rock, and then explosives were used to blow up the rock in order to create a hole through the rock. In average, the wells were 12 meters deep, but there was great variation, some only 6 meters deep, others 18 meters. The method of digging and using explosives was chosen because it is cheaper than drilling. A committee in the nearby village was responsible for the well, but before taking responsibility, some of the inhabitants were taught how to use and maintain the well and the hand pump.

In 2012 all the wells were checked, two of them had partly collapsed, and 35 pumps had broken down, seven of them were repaired. Only few of the wells were completely dry in the dry season, and the yield from the best 13 wells was over 150 litres per hour.

BAWA MAHIA

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CHANGING LIVES IN INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIPS

BETTER NUTRITION IS CLOSE TO MY HEART The women in northern Ghana must rediscover the importance of herbs, leaves and oils, because in that way, both they and their children can achieve a far healthier life, says Madam Boboobo.

Yes, we still experience hunger, particularly in the rural parts of Upper East, Upper West, Northern Region and Volta. Here many have not enough food all year round. But we also have a lot of malnutrition, because you cannot just live on rice or maize all year round – you must enrich the food. In the towns, the problem is that food is expensive and many therefore cannot afford to vary their diet. Perhaps many think that buying imported products – such as white rice – is a symbol of a better life. But there is, nevertheless, more fibre in our local whole-grain rice.

I started as an ordinary farmer, but in my family traditional knowledge of plants and oils has always played a big role. When I was around three years old, I started following my mother when she went out to find leaves and plants, and from her I learnt that ”if you add this or that, then ...”. We have accumulated much knowledge about plants in my family, and we have passed this knowledge from generation to generation.

I left school when I was 13, and since then I have lived off my knowledge about traditional food because I discovered that my knowledge could improve the lives of many. For example, I could tell breast-feeding mothers that if they added certain things to the diet, their children would be healthier and grow bigger.

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11 women are employed here

I now produce many of the ingredients myself.

This can for example be oil from the fruits of the baobab tree, soya oil or sesame seed oil. I have 11 women permanently working here, but sometimes we are up to 50. That can be when we dry fruit on our big drying machine. Most of it I grow myself, because apart from this place in Tamale, I have a farm further north.

I was contacted by Camilla Almblom, a young Danish woman who was here in Ghana as an exchange student. She had heard a lot of good things about moringa – that is, the leaves of the Moringa tree, and she asked me if I could help her gett in touch with a group of women in the countryside. I could, and I already work a lot with moringa - in fact, I have a whole plantation with moringa trees.

This is how I came into contact with Ghana Friends, and now they use me as a consultant, also at the soybean factory in Sang, where I have been involved in putting together the products they make.

We have held courses for women from the villages here at my place in Tamale, but many have problems getting here and finding accommodation, so now I go to the villages and conduct courses for groups of women. We work, among other things, with teaching them to cook food that is easy to prepare, so that no child is sent to school hungry.

My courses are about vegetables, fruit, plants and leaves. We do not mention meat, because it is not part of the normal diet of the women, not something they get every day.

MADAM BOBOOBO

SPREADING KNOWLEDGE ON NUTRITION Ghana Friends is not the only NGO I am in contact with. I have also joined an umbrella organisation that works with better nutrition in all parts of Africa, and I have participated in a workshop in Burkina Faso. And I have been in Denmark, at the Ghana seminar.

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CHANGING LIVES IN INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIPS

CORRIDORS FOR OUR CATTLE MAKE OUR LIFE MUCH EASIER Alima Seidu is a Fulani; she is the owner of 100 longhorn cattle and meets with lots of conflict with local farmers, when the cattle search for grass and water.

I used to follow the cattle in the dry season myself, we typically started moving in February, and in that period we lived in tents. We had some long poles, so that we could quickly raise a tent.

But after I got married and had children, it is my husband and eldest sons who follow the cattle.

I have three sons and a daughter, the eldest boy is 12 and the other two are 8 and 4 years old. My daughter is 5 years old. Previously, we moved around all year round, but now it is only in the dry season that we move. We are about 400 Fulanis here; we live on the land that the chief in Bagurugu has been so kind to let us use.

All in all we have 1500 cattle here, divided into smaller herds, and I own a herd of 100 cattle, which a herdsman takes care of. In the dry season they may wander up to 100 kilometres, for the cattle must have both grass and water. But a herdsman can accidentally destroy a farmer’s crop, so we have a lot of conflict - and they can be serious, there can be physical attacks. Many places the grass gets burnt in the dry season which makes it particularly hard to find food for the cattle.

As it is now, we have no fixed routes to follow, so it would make everything easier if corridors could be established that we could follow.

Water is the greatest problem

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Water is the greatest problem, because the water belongs to the local community, and in the dry season each and every local community guard its water. We move all the time with the cattle, so we are constantly dependent on finding new ponds with water, and I am afraid that it will be even more difficult in the future to get access to water and grazing, so I really hope that there will

be a solution with the corridors for the cattle, but I also know, that it demands many negotiations, both with the Chiefs that own the land and with the local farmers. Our herdsmen also participate in the negotiations, and yes, it will be hard, but we try.

We milk the cows and sell the milk to people in Bagurugu, the village we live nearby. We normally do not slaughter ourselves, but if there is a wedding, then we will. Otherwise, we sell to slaughter houses – and some drive out to us from Savelugu or Tamale.

THE CORRIDORS WILL COME Collection of data has in recent years led to a much better overview of the number of cattle, cattle migrations, and when in the year the migrations take place. In addition, data on the cattle markets have been collected, and some of the markets have been improved, for example in the form of loading ramps and fencing. In addition, a series of dialogue meetings are held where all parties involved meet – they include the herdsmen, local farmers and the local authorities.

With time, a number of corridors will be marked, as will water points where the cattle can have water. The marking of corridors has started in some countries in West Africa, but not yet in Ghana. Ghana Friends works with our Ghanaian partners and the French NGO “Acting for Life” to improve conditions for the Fulanis and their cattle - the agreement is for the next four years. The project is called PAMOBARMA.

ALIMA SEIDU

WORLD’S LARGEST NOMADIC GROUP

The Fulanis are the largest nomadic group in the world. It counts over 16 million people across the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa and beyond in a wide belt that extends all the way to East Africa. The vast majority are Muslims, and more and more Fulanis have become permanent farmers, a development that was rapidly gaining momentum after prolonged drought periods in the 70s and 80s.

The drought hit the Fulanis and their cattle very hard. However, quite a few Fulanis continue to live nomadic or semi-nomadic lives.

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CHANGING LIVES IN INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIPS

BETTER FOOD FOR THE CHILDREN WITH A NEW FACTORY In the town Sang, a women’s cooperative is ready to produce easy and nourishing food for children. The food is based on soya beans. In the totally new factory we met members of one of the groups: Abiba Mumuni, Mariama Abukari, Sanu Zimling, Lamatu Yusuf, Fusheina Kwabena and Amabu Adam. They proudly presented the plans: Previously, it was hard to sell soya beans because there wasn’t really a market for them. But now we have seen the potential and realized their importance, particularly how important they can be for child nutrition. Madam Boboobo has helped us realise this, she is a local woman with a great knowledge of plants and nutrition, so now we know, that we can cook soup and make soya milk and tom brown using the soya beans. Tom brown is a very nutritious mixture of maize, groundnuts and soya beans for both children and adults. We have the factory and the machines to clean and prepare the beans, others do it manually, but for the time being, we have the only factory in this area and thanks to the machines, we can assure the quality, so yes, we can deliver a better quality and a healthy mixture because we have access to the other ingredients such as sugar maize, milk powder and groundnuts. This means that we can deliver a mixture that is easy and quick to prepare, because you only have to add warm water. Our mixture is prepared so it can keep for six months.

We work in shifts

The factory is owned by the women’s cooperative.

Two operators must work permanently at the factory, which will run all year round, and in addition, a group of women must work in shifts.

We are in total 24 women, and we have formed groups of four. A group must work here a week at a time, and during the week the production must happen over three days.

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The sale of the beans must be profit-making, we plan to sell the food to schools and local markets, but we would also like to sell further afield in both Yendi and Tamale. And who knows, maybe Accra and Kumasi could be possible? And if the demand increases, and we cannot deliver enough raw material, then we will include other farmers.

”NO CHILD MUST STARVE” ”No child must starve” was the headline of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s fundraising event in 2017. Ghana Friends applied for 1.7 million DKK for this project that can help prevent malnutrition in the northern Ghana region. Apart from the factory, 24 women’s groups are trained in preparing nutritious food for their families using local raw material, and their villages and some local schools are involved in spreading this knowledge to prioritize children’s nutrition.

The general country-wide fundraising event unfortunately gave less than expected, so GV received 1.2 million DKK. Therefore, the main part of the funds to build the factory in Sang came from GV’s private fundraising.

The construction started in January 2018. The Danish Ambassador to Ghana, Tove Degnbol, has visited the factory.

The women show their products from the factory.

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KVINDEKOOPERATIV

SCHOOL FOR LIFE

THE IDEA OF SCHOOL FOR LIFE How should an education system look like if it should try to take in some of the children who because of school fees and other problems do not visit the formal school? Here Stig Skovbo tells about some of the reflections, which led to School for Life.

When my wife Mette and I came home after two years´ employment in Ghana, we had an ambition to spread the work of the Ghana Friendship groups to a broader circle of people, and soon the education system came into focus. We had contact to the Danida desk officer who dealt with GV in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and this coincided with a visit from Ghana. The Ghanaians visited us in Them where we live. Our chairman, Thomas Ravn-Pedersen, also came, and we sat together in our sitting room discussing if GV had the strength to work with more projects than what had been started from Dalun.

We discussed the fundamental needs in Ghana.

And the two Ghanaians agreed that there were a lot of dilemmas in the education system. It was inspired by the colonial power, and it was inefficient and badly founded - and the means were meagre. We discussed if we might give the primary school of the country a boost, so I rang up our desk officer in Danida. She listened kindly, and then said,” This won’t do. There is not enough value in it. There might be the need for resources to Primary School, but this will not work.”

What about an informal school system?

I went back with this message, and we had to consider along other lines. How should an education system look like if it should be complementary, not competing but trying to take in some of the children who because of school

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fees and other problems had not started in the formal school? We spent most of an afternoon discussing again, and again I had the task to call our desk officer and ask her. What now if we make an informal school system, a school system which combines practice and theory, and is much closer to the everyday life of the children? She bought the idea immediately, and it should of course be a system built on the mother tongue of the children.

She said that if we could incorporate our ideas in an application, she would consider it positively.

And as she said,” There is some news value in this, and it is a meaningful story to tell to the Danish public.” We had not had much focus on that, but we acknowledged that it was important.

We chose two districts on both sides of the front

We had had help to organise a pilot project, which later came to be School for Life, but suddenly the ethnic and very violent conflict arose in Dagbon.

It separated the ethnic groups so that really a no man’s land of 30 miles arose between Tamale and Yendi, where nobody dared stay. Danida also hesitated to implement the programme. It would have been the easiest solution to stay in wellknown territory where the Dagombas make out the bigger part of the population. However, we agreed to work with a district on each side of the frontline.

It meant the project got considerable goodwill, because it was seen as a conciliating factor, which might help to minimize ethnic differences - it was of course a daring venture, but as you know we succeeded.

STIG SKOVBO

WE GOT THE NAME FROM NIGERIA

The name School for Life was a working title that we had borrowed from Nigeria. After having been to Denmark a former minister of Foreign Affairs had established a Grundtvig Institute in Nigeria.

It built on the concept that a school system should picture the society, which it is a part of. He named the school School for Life, so we used that as a preliminary title but even after 2 weeks in Ghana we were not able to find a better one, so we concluded: What is wrong with using the same name? And it is my impression that the name has reflected our joint intentions. Fortunately it was a name that had appeal and meaning in both Ghana and Denmark.

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SCHOOL FOR LIFE

SCHOOL FOR LIFE AS A PEACEMAKER In 1994, regular war broke out between the Dagomba and Konkomba tribes in northern Ghana. Thousands were killed.

School for Life was at that time quite well established among both Dagombas and Konkombas and in fact, ended up playing an important role in bringing the peace that followed. Alhaji Baba recounts: In 1995 we were busy extending the area that School for Life covered. We created many new schools, but we discovered that no Dagombas would move into the area where many Konkombas lived, even though we assured them that we only had peaceful intentions with the schools. The war was still very close by, even though it was formally over.

Nevertheless, we drove from village to village to promote School for Life, and we had employees with us who spoke both languages. We explained the ideas behind the school and that we needed the village to appoint a facilitator, i.e. an unpaid teacher that we would train at the Simli Centre in Dalun.

They were not very keen on sending a potential facilitator to ”enemy land”, but I was part of the people who managed to convince them, and maybe it also helped that I had at that time been a politician for many years and therefore a person they knew.

We ended up finding 25 Dagombas and 25 Konkombas, but the 25 Konkombas were very scared by the idea of crossing the ”border”, so I drove them to Dalun in a bus in the middle of the night.

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Reassured by the Chief

We arrived when it was dark, but next day I took them all to the Chief in Dalun. He is Dagomba, but reassured them by bidding them welcome and assuring them, that this place was also theirs. They were very happy to hear that.

The course lasted three weeks, and we had teachers who spoke both languages. We were together day and night and the training went very well. Via the radio, we sent greetings to their home with the message to their people that we were all fine.

We said goodbye to the Chief and drove them back home, this time in the daytime and including a trip to Tamale, were we, among other things, visited the teacher training college. The result was that they went home feeling very safe.

Later other courses followed, but also meetings between school committees that were created in the villages. We held a big committee meeting in Yendi for parents with both backgrounds, and that really contributed to bringing people together.

All in all, I believe that education - and the fact of bringing people together - is an important tool in a tribal conflict. When people are together, friendships and trust emerge, and I am sure that School for Life played a pivotal role in the settlement of the conflict

ALHAJI BABA

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SCHOOL FOR LIFE

I WAS CRAZY ABOUT SCHOOL FOR LIFE Many of my friends have already married and have had children, but for me, education comes before marriage and children, says 20 year old Arahina Fusheini. She only started school when she was 12.

I grew up in Wulensi, quite a big town, about five hours bus ride from Tamale. I lived there with my grandmother and an uncle, and before I was 12, I had not gone to school. Instead, I played with my friends around the town when we didn’t help at home.

One day my uncle went to a meeting, where a committee was created that cooperated with School for Life in our town. When he came home from the meeting he said that I could start going to school, and this was how I joined the first School for Life class in Wulensi.

I liked it right from the first day. In the morning, I helped do housework at home, but at 2 o’clock in the afternoon I went to school. The school took place in the shadow under a big tree, and I knew the facilitator, i.e. our teacher, and the course was in my own language, Dagbani. We were both boys and girls, and were given pencils and books. We did not have to wear a uniform and we sang a lot.

We learnt to read in our own language, and for me it meant that it was easier to read English when I later needed to.

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Both proud and happy

The school lasted nine months and at the end we were given diplomas, while our families were there. I was both proud and happy that day, and my facilitator said that I ought to continue going to school, and in fact, most of the pupils in the class continued. However, many of my girlfriends never went to school, and now I can see that many of them are already married and have had babies. But for me, education comes before marriage and children.

I continued directly in the public school, here the language is English and we had to wear a uniform. We managed because everyone in the family contributed, and I am very happy, for I have three brothers and three sisters, I am the youngest.

Now I have moved to Tamale, where I attend second year of Islamic Senior High, a boarding school at secondary level. I attend a line where we, among other things, learn about domestic science and nutrition, and I dream of working with nutrition. But I would also like to see the world, preferably USA. Two of my sisters also managed to go to School for Life, and I really think it is a problem that School for Life does not have classes anymore.

Arahina Fusheini now attends an Islamic college, the hijab is obligatory for girls.

ARAHINA FUSHEINI

230,000 PUPILS IN SCHOOL FOR LIFE

In total, more than 230,000 children in Northern Ghana have been educated through School for Life - to put the figure into perspective: a whole year of Danish school children is approx. 68,000 children. In School for Life, children of 8-14 years learn, within nine months, both reading and writing, and for many children it serves as a bridge to continuing education in public school. Teaching takes place in the afternoon and in the children’s own language. The model has proven to be so effective that a national policy of ”complementary education” has been adopted in Ghana based on the School for Life model.

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SCHOOL FOR LIFE

MY ENCOUNTER WITH A SCHOOL IN GHANA Anne Birgitte Haahr is a teacher at the Free school in Hinnerup and one of the many teachers who have participated in the GV Teacher exchange programme. In the autumn 2007, she lived in the village Npansu and narrates about the visit: Finally! Following almost half a year’s waiting and preparation time, I had arrived in the village Npansu in northern Ghana, where I participated in the teacher exchange programme. I was going to see and experience one of the villages that have been supported by Ghana Friends to run a small school in an area without tradition of children attending school, and where almost 95% of the adult population was illiterate.

Madam Bekina is coming!

A group of boys came running towards me - full of curiosity. A young man stopped to put my backpack on the back of his bicycle. I walked with them along a small path towards town, while they fought over who should carry my water bottle and my bag. When I came to the meeting spot in the village, under the mango tree between the small clay huts, everybody from the village came to see.

The smallest children were screaming and hiding behind their mothers. The strange colour of my skin scared them…

Anthony later told me that white people have visited a few times, but they stay a couple of hours and then they leave. They never spend the night.

Before the visit to the village, my family and I had hosted Anthony Kwasi Biwatey, 33 years of age.

He was the School for Life teacher in the only class in the village with 25 pupils. The children were happy and proud and very motivated to attend school. Anthony often said: “School for Life is the way out of poverty”!

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Our culture seen through Anthony’s eyes

Anthony’s experience of the life with us in Denmark was a big experience and an eye opener to my family as well as to the children at my school in Hinnerup, where Anthony joined me for work every day. Through his questions and his wondering about life here, we were confronted with the big cultural differences between where we had each grown up. He wondered about the underpass under the road, the cutlery because he was used to eating with his hands, the shops that were stuffed with food, the Bridge between Zealand and Funen – “ Did they build that bridge before the water?”, the role of the men in the kitchen, the empty streets in the neighbourhood, the small nuclear families, the old peoples homes, the recycling centre, the technologized farming etc. Every day there was a new story and a lot of laughter…it was a cultural shock – and I experienced the same thing!

For one week, I lived in a small compound surrounded by grandparents, children, grandchildren. I slept on a mattress in a small clay hut, woke up to the roosters crowing, the goats barking and the sound of the women working from early morning – fetching water and firewood. I learnt to eat fufu with my hands, walked along with the women to the river to do laundry, joined them in the field with the only tools being a pickaxe and a cutlass – and then of course I was in school. But I didn’t get to experience the small school in the village every day, because Anthony was busy showing me their interesting culture and traditions. One day, the whole town were gathered to drive out the bad spirits to ensure that the town would be safe in the coming years.

During the week, I came to respect what a big challenge it is to make a successful school project in an area, where there is no tradition of attending school.

After five days in the village, I got impatient and insisted with Anthony that now was the time to see the school project that I had come so far to experience.

He looked at me – puzzled and said, “Don’t worry Bekina, they learn so fast!” This statement is great.

It got to me, because it shows so clearly, the very different approaches to life in our cultures.

ANNE BIRGITTE HAAHR

THE EXCHANGE PROGRAMME CHANGED MY PERSPECTIVE ON THE WORLD The teacher exchange programme changed my world perspective in many ways and gave me a lot of food for thought. I have since kept a good contact with Anthony and his family. In 2017, me and my husband went on an unforgettable revisit to the village, Npansu, which was still at the river side, where the boys are swimming and the women do the laundry.

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SCHOOL FOR LIFE

MY DREAM WAS TO BECOME A SCHOOL TEACHER Already as a young girl, Khadija Issifu dreamt of becoming a schoolteacher.

Now she is just that, and five years as a facilitator in School for Life has equipped her very well for the job.

I have lived for a long time here in Gmanicheri in the Gushegu area, but it is not so long ago that we moved to a ”family house”, i.e. a compound. I live here with my husband, his wife no. 2 and my four children. They are now 21, 17, 11 and 8, but in addition, I am foster mother for two adopted children, so we are now 11-12 people in the compound.

Right from when I was very young, I dreamt of becoming a teacher. I heard about School for Life and the possibility of becoming a facilitator – and as that seemed to be in the direction of teaching, I applied to become a facilitator. A committee had to accept me, but I got the job and was sent on a 21-days training course in Dalun. We learnt a lot about methods and how to handle a class, and I was very keen to be able to contribute towards children’s learning, as there is a great need for this.

The children learnt to read fluently.

I stayed two years in my first School for Life job, but in 2003 I moved to a new village, where I had classes the following three years. The methods used were very different from the ones we use in the public schools, but they worked well. We gave lessons in arithmetic, reading and writing, and particularly the books with stories helped the children learn to read fluently.

There was also a good cooperation with the local community, and on the whole, some good rules, for example that the children did not need school uniforms, as the cost of these could prevent parents from sending their children to school.

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Everything was free, and the fact that education took place in the afternoons was also a very good thing. Generally, I had no problems with discipline, and if the children found it hard to understand something, I spent time explaining.

Some parents were not able to send their children to the public school, and therefore it was good that School for Life existed – and I was very pleased that all my pupils from my first class continued in the public school. But the year after, some of them dropped out.

So, as mentioned, I spent five years with School for Life before I became a teacher in the public school system. I found it quite easy to change.

I still use some of the methods from School for Life, I am quite happy to explain something in the children’s local language even though the official language is English. We also sing and dance, but now everything is in English. In School for Life the children were 8 – 12 years old, and only up to 25 in each class. Now I have children aged 6 – 14 and some of the classes are very big, for example, I have one with 46 pupils.

I am sorry that School for Life classes have stopped, for we still need an alternative to the public school, particularly in some communities. I would like to thank very much for the support to both me, my family and to the whole society here in the Northern Region, where the educational level is, unfortunately, still very low.

KHADIJA ISSIFU

EASY TO FIND FACILITATORS

To be a School for Life facilitator is a demanding task. You have the responsibility for a class of 25 children for nine months, the duration of a course, and you only receive symbolic payment. Nevertheless, it has never been hard to find volunteers who would like to work as facilitators. Many of them were young people just out of secondary school, but who did not have good enough marks to continue studying. For them, a year as a facilitator meant that it could lead to a proper teaching education, which it did in many cases. In this way, 69 facilitators through the years have become schoolteachers.

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DALUN SIMLI CENTRE

THIS IS HOW THE SCHOOL STARTED Here is Lis Brandt’s story about the establishment of DNK, the folk high school on the savannah.

I should like to tell you about a kind of paradise in Ghana. On a daily basis, we called it DNK. The abbreviation stands for Dagbon Ninneesim Karimzon, which means, in Dagbani, ”the learning place that opens eyes for Dagbon”, and you cannot imagine a better description for this kind of school.

The pupils came from 8 different villages. We only had 16 pupils, not many, but enough to run a 7-month course. The pupils were chosen by Abukari Imoro and I. We went to the villages and held rallies. We did this in the summertime. And Abukari could talk heatedly; in fact, I don’t know anybody who can speak as heatedly as he can.

He inspired people so much, encouraged them to join, even though this was not easy – for how could they be away from home for 7 months? But we did, in fact, succeed.

Each pupil was allotted a small piece of land.

We had an agricultural coordinator, who helped them, but it was very much a case of ”learning by doing”. The pupils took care of their piece of land besides going to school. In the afternoons they were taught more theoretical subjects. For example, they learnt to weave, and they received a lot of healthcare knowledge. They learnt to use condoms, for example.

Discussions about subjects heard on the radio

In the evenings we often got together for storytelling – the old Ghanaian way of telling stories, whereby one person would start with a rhyme, and then someone would pick up and say – yeah, I should like to tell a story about this or that. He would then talk for a few minutes, and then someone else would say that he could also talk about that, and in this way stories kept coming

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all the time.

In the mornings, we began the day by – well not exactly by the traditional Danish folk high school morning song session, but still something similar to it. Everyone had been given a radio that they kept in their room; I think there were 6 pupils in each room, so the conditions were quite primitive. We asked them to listen to local radio every morning. They did that, and after breakfast we asked them what they had heard on the radio, and which subjects they would like to discuss. And we discussed everything, from politics to sexual morality, illnesses, yes, all sorts of subjects.

All the lessons were taught in Dagbani. English was not used at all in the lessons. The pupils came from the villages and could not speak English.

These so-called long courses did not continue for very long. DANIDA had supported our project through all the years, and they found it too costly compared to the benefits. I was very disappointed with this decision, because it may be that we did not have a lot of pupils, but those who came, definitely benefitted greatly from the stay at the school.

The King came to the official opening ceremony

Some Ghanaians also came on a two-month democracy stay in Denmark, and when they came back we made a huge party at DNK, a kind of democracy party over a few days. The party took place at the same time as a group of pupils ended their course at DNK. We were thrilled that the overlord of the whole of Dagbon came because on that occasion, we would officially inaugurate DNK according to Ghanaian tradition.

Indeed, it was a huge thing that the King had agreed to come. When the cook (Safia) heard this, she began to cry. I asked why she was crying, we were all happy for the King to come. She said through tears: ”Oh madam Lis, you do not know how many special considerations there are - one Chief cannot eat with the other, or food must be served in many different rooms and at many different times”. But the King came, and it all went very well.

Small photo: Lis Brandt and her husband Gunnar, both were for many years among the most active volunteers of Ghana Friends.

DENMARK SEMINAR SINCE 1995

LIS BRANDT

In Denmark we have Ghana seminars, and in Ghana, in 1995, a parallel commenced: the Denmark seminar. A Denmark seminar is something really special. Several Chiefs arrive accompanied by drummers, with pomp and splendour, but there are also speeches and stories given by various invited people.

Everything takes place in Dagbani and with eager discussions. I remember how a woman after a speech pulled the microphone from the man holding it, and then she really got to say what she wanted to say. It was fantastically liberating to see how a woman here showed something like equal rights between the sexes. I am proud that GV provided a platform for this kind of discussion, because it was otherwise completely unfamiliar in the Ghanaian context at the time.

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DALUN SIMLI CENTRE

STORIES AS EDUCATIONAL TOOLS Roland Yahaya became headmaster of Dagbon Centre for General Learning – also known as DNK - in 1994, an information and educational centre, inspired by Danish folk high schools. At the centre, stories were an important element. Mr. Yahaya left the centre in 2012 and has now retired. He says: Stories are very important. We tell stories to entertain each other, to make each other wiser and to pass knowledge to our children. Storytelling is part of life here in Africa, particularly in the countryside. We tell stories about life, death and how we ought to live.

These stories are normally told because we want to pass on a certain message. We have stories that are about laughter, greed and about sharing, because we share a lot. Ghana is normally a country that is quite united, and where we support each other, and to underline this, we use stories. If a person is greedy, then we also know what will happen to him. And if a person is nice, we also know what to expect. The same goes if a person is weak.

Narrating in front of the class

I remember how stories were part of the curriculum at my primary school. The pupils were trained in narrating, but before they had to stand before the whole class, they had to present the story in a group, this was a great help, also for those children, who did not like narrating. It also helped those who didn’t know what to say, and when the stories were told, there was a free discussion about it. So stories are a good educational tool.

When we tell stories, we also include our surroundings and environment. We include figures from the environment, we tell about the birds around us or we tell about the animals, insects, yes, everything alive.

In the stories we build relationships between the storyteller and the characters we have created.

In Ghana, we have spiders, hares and tortoises,

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and we use them to describe certain situations. So storytelling is part of our life. A young woman or a young man may listen to what you say, but if you shape your advice or wisdom as a story, it will give another kind of meaning for him or her.

In this way, they will themselves reach a conclusion or a solution. If you instead had been more direct and said: ”You must not do that” he or she may not have listened. But by using animals, birds etc. you touch the person, so now the girl may be thinking: ”If I do this or that, then this or that will happen”.

The hare and the tortoise

The story about the hare and the tortoise is a good example. They agree to race, and the hare quickly sees that the tortoise is far behind, so it lies down in the grass and takes a nap, but when it wakes up, it discovers that the tortoise is quietly and calmly on its way over the finishing line.

When I had told this story to the students at the school, I always asked afterwards: Who are you, the hare that is fast, but often forgets his task, or the tortoise that knows that it can only win by using his intelligence? The story can also be seen as a picture of the situation here in Ghana: sometimes we send too many to school, some become very clever and obtain important positions, others may go to college and become carpenters.

But often it is the people with the shortest education that end up being the pillar of their society or their home. When they grow up, they take care of the home whereas the fast runners may never come back home. So who shows most responsibility?

Let me lift the story to another level, for some think that we live in a time where there are too many hares in society; hares who never doubt their own ability to run fast, but at the same time have forgotten why they are running.

But of course, I only say this as a storyteller. It is up to you, who hear the story, to judge.

ROLAND YAHAYA

5000 HAVE ATTENDED COURSES About 3000 women and 2000 men have taken a series of courses at Dagbon Centre for General Learning before the school closed and became what is now the Simli Centre. Mr. Yahaya was employed in 1994 as the headmaster, because he had an education in both culture and languages (English/Dagbani) from the university of Cape Coast.

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DALUN SIMLI CENTRE

30 YEARS AS A HANDYMAN Leo was employed in 1989 as a handyman at Simli Centre, which at that time was a folk high school on the savannah. Now, Simli Centre is an educational centre. Leo is a Christian, by far most of his colleagues are Muslims, but they function well together.

I am Leo. Actually, my name is Leonard Yeltuonoba, but I have always been called Leo. I was born in 1965 in Upper West, in the regional capital called Wa. I come from a Christian family. After finishing technical school I came to Tamale, and I heard of a group called Panajof. I went with them to the Simli Centre, the Danish-Ghanaian programme. When we arrived, we were welcomed by a Dane, Rudolf Møller, and he said that we could start working the day after, but also, that he would try us first.

I looked very young

Next morning he showed me a wall to plaster, and when he came back from Tamale, he saw that all the work I had done was perfectly correct. But then – when he saw me, looking so small, he said I could not have done the work, he even doubted that I had done any training, because I looked so small. But I convinced him and he said: Leo you will be the last person to be sacked here – and today I am seeing it. I am the only one left at the project, so I thank God for that.

We have different beliefs

When I moved to Tamale I realised I was in a predominantly Muslim community, but I my own way of fitting in. We all have our individual beliefs. I don’t have to interfere with the faith of others, just like they don’t interfere with mine,

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so all along we have worked together without problems.

Now I have been working here at the Simli Centre for 30 years. I think I have done all kinds of work, from laying foundations to roofing, also plumbing, electrical work, carpentry – I have done it all. I think that is why I am still here. I have been offered jobs so many times at other places, but personally I like this place. I am happy here, and nobody worries me about my faith, just like I don’t worry about theirs. When we are working they go for their prayers, I know it is their rules.

When we have public meetings there is no discrimination. If a there is a Christian, they ask that person to lead the opening or the closing prayer. I have done that many times at meetings. On Fridays the Muslims go to the mosque, but Friday is not a holiday like Sunday, so after Friday prayer they come back for work. I have always been aware that there are many different Christian churches, but recently I learned that there are also many Islamic branches. And I was surprised to hear they have that kind of variation.

I enjoy staying in Dalun. People are friendly. As I said, I let them go with their own belief, but of course we sometimes discuss our faith and try to convince each other. When there is a problem within the community, it is often one individual, a trouble maker, who doesn’t know how to argue, so he may try to lean on religion.

But as I said, I have lived here for the past 30 years without any problems.

LEONARD YELTUONOBA

SIMLI CENTRE Dalun Simli Centre is still a popular place for meetings, teaching, conferences and courses with possibilities for overnight stay for up to 200 people. The photo shows students and teachers from Hald Ege boarding school in Denmark visiting the center. The school has used Simi Centre as a base for exchange activities with young people from YEfL’s Youth Centre through three visits during the last years.

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DALUN SIMLI CENTRE

KITCHEN AT FULL BLAST To cater for 200 people is quite a lot.

But Madam Azara handles this in fine style. Some years ago she took over the responsibility of the kitchen at Simli Centre.

When we have many guests, we get up at four o’clock in the morning, because normally everything has to be ready by seven o’clock, but there are also some who would rather have breakfast at eight or nine. We are four people in the kitchen, and we can cater for up to 200 guests. However, it is not enough to be able to cook, because I first have to calculate which ingredients need to be purchased and how much of each. We usually buy rice grown locally, but still, we buy most of the food at the market in Tamale. For example, I calculate how much pepper we need, and then I and one of the other women go, and I keep accounts of the items while shopping.

I had housekeeping (domestic science) at school, but apart from that I have taught myself.

But I have been here a long time and learnt a lot along the way. I have five sons, but they are grown up now, one of them has his own children . My husband is a farmer and lives in Dalun, but most of the time I live here alone in a room at the centre. That is most convenient.

Guests have very different tastes

We use a lot of spices, but the most popular are pepper, ginger, salt, stock cubes and vinegar, we must conform to the preferences of the guests.

This can vary a lot, whether people come from southern Ghana or Denmark. Danes are, for example, not so keen on chili, but very fond of rice and spaghetti. TZ, tuo zaafi, a dish made with maize, is my personal favorite, but not all Danes like it.

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Fish dishes are very popular, and so are beef and guinea fowl – but not everybody likes goat meat. We also have guests who prefer to avoid meat, so we serve beans and eggs instead.

We normally cook the food over gas - it is too risky to use electricity, as the supply tends to fail. It also happens sometimes that we cook over an open fire. Unfortunately, we do not have a working oven. But we have freezers and they are so good that they keep food cold for a long time, even when there is power failure.

We had to get to know how to cook with gas.

One day we had turned the flame up so high that when we were going to fry vegetables in oil, the oil caught fire so the kitchen nearly went up in flames. Another time, we had a new floor in a room where people dine, but it was so slippery that we fell with the food.

Normally we four women take care of everything, also the cleaning here at the Simli Centre. But on special occasions, for example the annual Denmark seminar, we get some extra help in the kitchen.

Most people like our food. We had for example a workshop with approx. 40 participants, and every day someone came into the kitchen to thank us for the food and to enquire whether we were from Tamale or Accra, seeing we could cook such good food. But we are actually from here, from Dalun!

MADAM AZARA

THREE STONES IN THE YARD

A kitchen is always a central place at a conference centre, but when Simli Centre started, the kitchen consisted roughly of three stones and a fireplace in the yard – the food was at that time cooked over an open fire.

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SIMLI RADIO

WE JUST HAD TO HAVE A RADIOSTATION Persistence pays off. Alhaji Abukari Imoro insisted that Ghana Friends should help establish a radio station, but the Danes were fiercely against. They could not see the point of an ”allotment garden radio”, but Imoro ended up getting his radio - and since 1997 Simli Radio has reached out widely with its messages.

My first time in Denmark was in 1987 and at that time I visited, among other things, East Jutland Radio. Here I saw pictures of a local radio station in Sri Lanka, supported by Denmark’s Radio, which had a small department that helped radios in developing countries, DANICOM. I got very curious and got some material to take home. Three years later I was again in Denmark and heard again about the mobile radio station in Sri Lanka and how it was used for the benefit of the inhabitants of the country. There was famine at that time. And then I decided that we should also have one.

I was actually a meteorologist and worked for the Ghana Meteorological Service at Tamale airport, but I was involved in the work of setting up the centre in Dalun, and in 1991 I quit my government job. I was increasingly keen to have a radio station and was inspired by, among other things, a Dutch woman who was a medical director in Tamale. She thought that a radio was a good way to get health messages out and therefore backed me up.

I knew that there was resistance from the Danish side because the local radio stations in Denmark did not send a lot of serious broadcasts, but I eventually also got the support of the Danish Chairman, Thomas Ravn-Pedersen. He is a journalist himself and worked at East Jutland Radio.

The World Bank also got involved, because they said that Ghana should be supported by setting up FM stations, for example in Tamale. But that

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was not what I wanted. Such a station would not involve people, because I wanted people to hear their own voice on the radio - in their own language. In 1995, I was in Denmark for the third time. Ole Aabenhus from DANICOM undertook to train me as a producer and reviewed all the equipment and showed me how to use it. Together with him I drove around Denmark to produce programs - among other things; I made a program about the milk’s way from cow to store. We had a mobile radio transmitter - and I really enjoyed it.

We recorded and let people listen to it

”Okay, go to Ghana and get it going,” he said.

Still, another year went by, because we had to hire some people first and we had to practice. All the equipment was sponsored by Danish Radio, and we took it out into the villages, recorded people and then let them listen to it. They said ”Yes, this is the kind of radio we want”. For example, we discussed teenage pregnancies.The broadcasts were on cassette tape, and initially we had to use the transmitter in Tamale to broadcast, but we also copied and distributed cassettes to School for Life, and each class had a cassette recorder.

In 1997, the first broadcast was transmitted from our own transmitter in Dalun, and Simli Radio quickly became very popular. Among other things, we made programmes on community development, courtship and family planning, but the radio also arranged cultural evenings, where we drove out to a community and sent from it.

It was with dance, music and stories from the community, and it then led to enquiries from other communities that wanted us out as well. I also set up listening clubs where we gave the village a radio and let them discuss our broadcasts - and we could follow, edit and broadcast that discussion afterwards. We have never had advertisements on the radio, but since 2004 we have been able to send personalized messages, for example about funerals that people paid for.

Alhaji Abukari Imoro retired from the radio station in 2005.

FIRST BROADCAST IN 1997

ALHAJI ABUKARI IMORO

In 1997, the first broadcast was transmitted from our own transmitter in Dalun, and Simli Radio quickly became very popular. Among other things, we made programmes on urban development, courtship and family planning, but the radio also arranged cultural evenings, where we drove out to a city and sent from it. It was with dance, music and stories from the city, and it then led to enquiries from other cities that wanted us out as well.

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SIMLI RADIO

THE RADIO GIVES VOICE TO THE VOICELESS Simli Radio has taken up many controversial topics, and it gives a voice to the many that otherwise are not heard. Also in the future the radio can be instrumental in creating development, says Abdul Razak Abukari, daily leader of the radio station.

In the beginning I travelled around to the villages to gather material for our broadcasts, now I am the leader of Simli Radio, and it is really a success story.

I am very fond of our local community, and I enjoy furnishing the inhabitants with information, which enlightens them. You could say that my work is to amplify their voice and get them involved in society.

We had some trouble getting our own frequency, but managed to get it in 2005, and since then we have broadcast a great variety of topics such as education, agriculture, strengthening women’s roles, and we like to treat controversial subjects, for example, we have had transmissions on battered wives. In the programmes we talk about how men ought to treat women, and now, when we visit the villages, it seems to have had an effect.

Many farmers call us

Farming plays an essential role for the development of Ghana, so we have quite a lot of programmes about agriculture, and many of our listeners are farmers.

We draw on agricultural experts and I believe that we pass on important knowledge.

I am a farmer myself, and I have learnt a lot by listening to the experts we have had in the studio, for example, from the Institute of Agriculture in Kumbungu, and they are quite willing to come when we invite them. We also invite well-educated farmers. It is limited what they can contribute in the form of new information, but it often leads to exciting dialogues, when people call in to discuss with them.

And we really get good response. When we open the telephone after our agricultural programmes on Wednesdays, we usually get about 30 calls.

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Our programs about education also play a vital role.

Many find it hard to understand why they should send their children to school, when they are needed at home on the land, but gradually, there are schools even in the most remote villages.

Also political discussions

Ghana is a peaceful country thanks to our political stability. We believe we can strengthen democracy by engaging people, so before an election, we are not only here in the studio, we travel around and organise group discussions, and make politicians say what they will do for the local community if they get elected. In this way, we contribute to strengthening democracy through Simli Radio.

However, during an electoral campaign, there are limits to what we can say on air. We must not offend anybody, and back in 2008 we had to close the radio for a while. The Chief of Dalun said that it would be better to close, because people called in with very sharp, political views. He felt this could be dangerous and wreak havoc.

We are not tied to any political party, even though some people say so. We are independent and only wish to ensure that development is shared by everybody. As a leader of the radio, it is my responsibility to ensure stability, peace and harmony among us, but also to ensure that development benefits everybody, so we in time can look back and ascertain that poverty has been eliminated, and that there is no shortage of water or schools.

My vision

My vision is that we can continue being a very lively radio that gives a voice to the people in the villages, people whose voices are not normally heard – and maybe connected to TV, so people can see us. My vision is a Simli Radio that works closely with people, listens to them and builds interaction, all in order to create more development. Everyone working here are volunteers, but we have a common vision about developing our society, and we are well aware that there is no development if we just sit at home.

ABDUL RAZAK ABUKARI

THE RADIO HAS WON SEVERAL PRIZES

Simli Radio has over the years received a lot of recognition, latest in 2018; it received a prize for best community radio station. This happened in a competition by Hyperlink Media, Ghana, an internet competition in which people could vote for their favorite within a number of categories.

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CULTURAL EXCHANGE

COOPERATION LEADS TO GOOD FRIENDSHIPS Countless guests from both Ghana and Denmark have through the years enjoyed the hospitality of Pia Sonnenborg – and many networks and friendships have come out of the meetings she has arranged – often in her villa in Valby.

I am a child of a very hospitable family – and I have got the space! So, yes, there have been a lot of discussions and talking around the table with many Danish and Ghanaian guests. When these great people are here, they must meet other people that are just as great. So, I am good at bringing people together – and at maintaining the contacts and relations. I grew up as an only child, and learned that if you want relations, you must be part of creating and maintaining them yourself.

Became a member as newly trained teacher

I was a newly trained teacher working at the Balle School in Silkeborg, when I heard about Ghana Friends for the first time. I was moreover a scoutleader for girls between 9-11 years of age and thought I could draw them into the work. I realized that it is difficult for girls at that age to stick to something. But then my friend, Estrid, suggested that I became a member of GV. I did that in 1980.

We have had so many guests from Ghana, and I brought many of them to my school. All the classes that I have taught, have heard a lot about Ghana and the Friendship groups. Later, when I moved to Copenhagen, the guests from Ghana were taken on excursions around the capital, and again I brought them to school. I was now working at an adult education centre, and the guests from Ghana taught English in various classes.

I have been lucky that my employers were always supportive, when I asked for leave in order to travel to Ghana. I joined the board of GV and travelled to Ghana almost once a year, for the first time in 1986.

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Incredibly beautiful trip through the Sahara Desert

In 1991, I was part of a group that drove a project vehicle to Ghana. We found out that it would cost the same to send it on a boat as to drive it down there ourselves. So, on Boxing Day we started our journey from Silkeborg in a brand-new vehicle. It took 15 days and 10,000 km and I recall the trip through the Sahara Desert as being incredibly beautiful. We slept in a tent, and on the whole trip I was doing the bookkeeping – in seven different currencies!

I brought much of what I learnt in Ghana Friends into my professional life. Teachers do not necessarily know much about chairing of meetings, bookkeeping and accounts or the importance of good and concise minutes of meetings. But I used this knowledge from GV and brought it into my teaching. The other way around, I also used my pedagogical knowledge as a teacher in advising in the School for Life project in Ghana.

I see potential

I also think that my pedagogical knowledge makes me see potential when others do not – and in that way create networks. I suggested Mette Brandt as a potential candidate for the chairmanship when Thomas Ravn-Pedersen stopped as a Chairman of GV – and it led to eight years with her as a Chairman. Later, I was also part of a group suggesting our current Chairperson, Kathrine Skamris.

According to me, Ghana Friends is really a friendship project about bringing together north and south. Working together for a long time, having the same interest, creating some wonderful friendships - maybe because you meet people of a totally different background. I can confidently say that throughout my professional life, I have never attended a course or seminar that has taught me more than what Ghana Friends has.

PIA SONNENBORG

Small photo: Silkeborg 1990, Leif Rasmussen, Henning Lindberg, Anette Kornø and Pia Sonnenborg ready for departure. 15 days - and 10,000 kilometers - later they arrived in Dalun in the new project vehicle.

MORE THAN 100 PEOPLE ON EXCHANGE PROGRAMME

The annual exchange of teachers started in 2004. Ghanaian teachers visited Denmark for some weeks living with Danish colleagues. After that, the trip went the other way. For many years, four teachers from Ghana and four teachers from Denmark participated in these exchange visits. Adding it up, 56 Ghanaians and 53 Danish teachers have participated. In 2017, GV decided that two of the four exchange participants should be people with nutritional knowledge. However, the programme failed to find participants for the programme in 2018.

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CULTURAL EXCHANGE EXCHANGE

HARD TO RETURN WITH NEW IDEAS Shani Mahama is son of the Dalun Chief.

He is married in Denmark to Ulla, and together they have the children, Pumaja and Sigli. Shana narrates: I was almost born into Ghana Friends, and I recall some of the first visits from Denmark to Dalun. Often it was me or some of my brothers that translated for my father. Some of the Danes discovered that I was quite good at translating between English and Dagbani, so pretty fast, I became a permanent interpreter. The Danes were good at saying “wauw Shani, you are good at English” and it really strengthened my self-confidence.

I did not see it as a strange thing for a group of white people coming into my everyday life, but rather it was exciting for me. Many Danes also brought gifts and I was crazy about pens, even to this day. It was exciting to meet people from a different world and with a different story – and who wanted to help the society where I grew up.

My own culture in a new perspective

At some point in time, Silkeborg folk high school invited two young Ghanaians to Denmark to experience the folk high school and a different culture – I was one of them. The folk high school changed my personality. I have always been interested in development of societies and had some opinions about it. But I was not so good at expressing my opinions and did not have the courage, maybe because I came from a culture, where children and young people are taught to listen instead of having something to say. At the folk high school, students and teachers had a dialogue – a conversation. There was active participation, also by the students. That triggered something in me: I really felt like expressing my opinion and I saw my own culture in a new perspective. I was however not allowed to say something about this in Ghana. People thought I was criticising my own culture. I probably also said it in a way that may have provoked some people. I felt like saying things

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as I experienced them, and I met a lot of resistance.

Even today, I experience resistance and it has been hard on me. I came back from Denmark full of energy and with new ideas, but I was still just a small boy. I was very irritated about that.

More space for the youth today

Luckily, I gained the courage to engage some young people in different ways and share my experiences with them – so in that way it was good. But to come back with new experiences has always been the biggest challenge. The Danish society opens its arms, shows hospitality and room for the Ghanaian young people coming to Denmark. But when we come back to Ghana, nobody wants to receive or listen to us.

I think, however, that there is more responsiveness today, and that we have managed to create a space for young people in Ghana. There is still some sort of barrier between young and older people, but the older generation – whether they like it or not – can no longer deny the youth participation in decisionmaking processes. This has become clear. Room for the youth has been created. Now, there are maybe 2-3 young people that the ones returning from abroad can talk to, and who are also active in all kinds of youth activities.

One of the biggest benefits coming out of the cultural meeting between Denmark and Ghana is a great awareness process. In Dalun, for instance, there are now a lot of enlightened people. It also creates some confusion – an awareness where you now know your rights can create confusion.

But the cultural meeting, where young Danes mix with young Ghanaians, has created something. It is also a fact that my father has been very good at seeing this. Without praising myself too much, I also think I have contributed to the process. Somebody needs to catch the ball and pass it on to others.

I think, I have been good at capturing that: Why are they here? Yes, to help. Then we must also do something to help ourselves.

SHANI MAHAMA

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Shani in his danish home and with his mother in Dalun (small photo).

CULTURAL EXCHANGE

JOURNEYS WHERE EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT As a teacher at Silkeborg Folk High School Maren Gadegaard has accompanied several teams of students on long journeys to Ghana. The journeys included stays with families in villages, and here you could really speak about culture meetings. Maren narrates: The first years the journeys were offered as a kind of main subject starting at the High School in August, where we prepared the trips together, both practical things, but also the culture meeting. We did that till November, where I then travelled with 12 students as the only teacher - the first time in 2002. We always started with a one-week stay at the centre in Dalun in order to be introduced to the language, the culture, the food, and the heat. After a week I drove with a colleague from the project to the chosen villages where the students were dropped off in groups of two or three.

Intense experiences in Ghana

Nearly the same thing always happened at the arrival to the village: We were placed in front of the huge family and were introduced. The students were shown the compound where they were to sleep. I remember how Stine came screaming out from the dark compound after just having been inside. I thought I had informed very much about especially this first meeting, but perhaps not exactly that spiders might be the first thing you met at the entrance to such a dark room. She survived, but just this little example shows how everything is different. And here they were to stay for three months. In that way they had the chance of experiencing Ghana much more intensely than I did myself. I just returned to my base at the Centre.

At the same time it was meant to be an emergency clinic. If some of the students became sick, I took them home to the Centre. At a certain time I had seven students there with malaria.

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Surrounded by people day and night

I had not planned many activities during the period in the villages. The main purpose of the stay was that they should live with the family they stayed with, experience that the time nearly stood still, experience the frustration of not being active all the time. Sometimes I have had the strange experience that on one side I could say,” I am happy it is not me” and on the other side say,” Wish it was me”, for it is a unique possibility to learn and experience something quite foreign and to be surrounded by people constantly and an object of curious glances almost round the clock.

From the day I left them in the village and till I came back for them again, there was a big change. It was hardly the same people I brought home, and they had so much to tell.

After Christmas the students moved into the School for Life project. Here they lived in the district centres, which were connected to the project. In many ways it became easier for them.

Now they knew a little of the culture. They were to follow a facilitator in his or her work. Some of them had even made teaching materials at home. Where some of them had earlier been a bit reserved because it was all overwhelming and difficult to take in, now everything turned for all of them. Now they began to understand and appreciate things, and this brought a boost of energy to them.

I have tried to follow the students after they had left the High School, and it has been wonderful to see that many stick to the relations they got in Ghana, and many of them are aware of the global challenges that we face. Immediately after their return to Denmark some of them had an opposite culture shock. From having lived with limited resources they now came home to a society with abundance of everything except time.

It demanded new adjustment, but it also meant a new turn for many in their further education. Some of them engaged themselves in GV, others chose another way of education than they had originally planned, and others again have gone out as volunteers in new parts of the world. So you can say that these journeys were their School for Life

MAREN GADEGAARD

The two small photos: Some of the exchange students that Maren was contact person for.

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UDVEKSLING CULTURAL EXCHANGE

THE IMPORTANCE OF GROUPS Sadick Musah is one of the many young Ghanaians who were offered a stay at Silkeborg Højskole (a “folk high school, which teaches general culture, history etc., no exams nor special diplomas). During this stay he learnt a lot about group dynamics, and now he encourages young people in the villages to form groups. ”I brought red pepper back to Ghana from Denmark, because we have a group in this village that cultivates a communal garden. I planted the seeds, and my stepmother watered them morning and evening, but I never thought they would grow – but they did!

It is almost symbolic, because there are also other things I learnt at Silkeborg that are now sprouting.

I learnt about teambuilding and group dynamics and about how much a group can achieve, and I think, people here in Ghana can benefit from this, so I am deeply involved – I have by now visited many towns and encouraged them to create groups that can participate in the debates about society, and in fact, many groups have formed. Our garden group here in Karaga is only one example.

You could ask about anything

I am 26 years old. My wife, Zuweira, is 24, and we are expecting our first child. Only one month after our wedding, I was contacted by Youth Empowerment for Life and offered a course at Silkeborg Højskole. My wife was not so happy about it, but she finally accepted it. I had never before been outside Ghana, and had quite a lot of problems getting a visa, but managed.

I really looked forward to meeting people from other parts of the world, but I also looked forward to receiving a certificate of participation.

Concerning the tuition, I discovered that there are great differences between Ghana and Denmark.

We are used to sticking to specific educational

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books, but at Silkeborg Højskole it is a lot about following your heart.

I was frustrated, because it was a totally new system that I had to get used to. But I discovered that the Danish educational system is quite flexible, and the students can ask any question they like, also personal things. For example, I was asked how I met my wife. In Ghana, you cannot ask such questions.

The biggest surprise was that there were no exams. I had expected exams, but I received a piece of paper that showed that I had participated in the course. Here in Ghana, there would have been some personal remarks. But all in all, I have learnt a lot, among other things, that you can be yourself and dress as you like. I am also better now at talking to other people, for example, I have just talked with a guy I know about how he can improve his life, and now he is fine and sleeps much better.

I am a trained teacher, but right now I am doing community service by working for National Service. It is obligatory, and it is one year’s work without pay, I still have to do four months. My community service consists of teaching.

CO-OPERATION WITH SILKEBORG HØJSKOLE 25 people from Ghana have over the years participated in the school’s long courses; in addition, some have participated in the short courses. The school has paid for the stay, because it has always had an international profile and wished that the students should meet other young people from different cultural and/or religious backgrounds. For a number of years, Silkeborg Højskole had students to Ghana for an extended stay every other year.

SADICK MUSAH

YOUTH SPEAK UP RADIO JOURNALIST

Sadick is one of the 25 young radio journalists trained as a part of the Youth Speak Up project. Together with three young people from Karaga, he produces radio for young people, broadcast at Zaa Radio. The aim of the project was to give a voice to young people and a strong platform to set their problems high on the agenda.

The project was very successful, it brings changes to the young people themselves but also to their local community. The project and Sadick are today a part of the E4L Program.

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CULTURAL EXCHANGE

FROM VOLUNTEER TO ACTIVE MEMBER Birgitte Dahl was a volunteer for a short while in Ghana, which led to an extensive engagement with Ghana Friends. She is today an active volunteer in the youth committee and uses her skills as a multimedia designer to develop GV’s visual expression, through the preparation of websites and the creation of public relations material, both in Denmark and in Ghana.

My daily work is as a press and communications officer at an architectural design studio, and besides that, I run my own freelance communications business. My employers support my volunteer work, also when I have to travel abroad and participate in educational courses. They realise that my professional skills are enhanced by using them in other contexts, and that I bring inspiration back to my daily work. For example, when I take on jobs such as organising events, exhibitions and workshops in Denmark or in Ghana, or when I participate in courses for Ghana Friends, such as the latest on video production for social media.

Many and extensive tasks

In 2011 I travelled to Ghana to work as a short-term volunteer for Ghana Friends, after having heard about this possibility from an acquaintance attached to the friendship association in Silkeborg. For eight months, I lived at the Simli Centre in Dalun, where GDCP (Ghanaian Danish Community Programme) was based at the time. The place had a very active and dynamic community education centre and the popular local radio: Simli Radio.

My role as a short-term volunteer was to contribute to the cultural exchange between the two associations in Denmark and in Ghana and

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to assist Ghana Friends’ Liaison Coordinator and GDCAs’ staff in various odd jobs. The jobs were many and broad, everything from organising the sorting of waste at the Simli Centre, driving errands, taking part in ceremonies, writing minutes and helping the Kayayoo programme, as well as being a substitute teacher at the Model School when they were short of staff.

Visit the youth centres

Since my first trip to Ghana I have been active in several of GV’s committees. When I came home, I joined the committee for GDCP, later I moved to the information committee and today I am active in the youth committee where I have enjoyed following, among other things, Youth Speak Up! - and other extremely exciting youth activities. The collaboration with the staff of YEfL is incredibly inspirational and rewarding, and I enjoy visiting the youth centres when I am in Ghana, and experience the many creative and entrepreneurial activities and the contagious energy among the young people there.

It is extremely exciting to have followed GV and our partner organisations – as well as the development of Tamale and the whole of northern Ghana over the years I have been part of GV. Still, what means most to me are the relationships I have formed in Ghana over the years. Wonderful and capable colleagues who love their job - the mutual interest and exchange, both professionally and socially. So many good people have joined over the years; I cooperate really well with them, particularly in my field of communication. I am still in touch with many of my colleagues right back from the time I was in Dalun, several of them are now employed with other programmes in Tamale.

Wall of Sound Festival, 2018. Ghana Friends exhibited satirical art from Ghana and facilitated a statement badge workshop.

BIRGITTE DAHL

IMPROVEMENT OF GHANA HANDSHAKE

Part of Birgitte Dahl’s volunteer work is to be responsible for the layout of Ghana Handshake. The magazine is published twice a year, 500 copies each time, and is sent out to members of Ghana Friends and various contacts. The magazine contains news from the programmes, Northern Ghana and Ghana in general, and is prepared by an editorial board run by Ghana Friends volunteer members. You can read all issues of Handshake on the Ghana Friends website.

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CULTURAL EXCHANGE

STUDENTS GET AN INSIGHT INTO GHANAIAN CULTURE Helle Stensgaard Karlsen is international coordinator at the Via University College.

She narrates how the idea of sending students on an internship in Northern Ghana came up. Three groups of students from various health-related study programmes have so far had the opportunity, and a fourth group will soon be on its way.

The idea came up at a Ghana seminar some years back. But even when I studied nursing, and later when I became the international coordinator, I have been thinking how interesting it might be to travel with a group of students and live in villages, just as we did when I worked at Silkeborg folk high school.

Learning to think out of the box

As an international coordinator, I work to provide the students an opportunity to exchange experiences in many parts of Europe, Africa or Asia. I facilitate the processes entailed in sending students out to gain both national and international cultural experiences in their various fields of study. It is in the meeting with the other that you can look upon your own profession and get insight into what has formed you and what your field of study has to offer. When the students return, they are more aware and knowledgeable about what it is to be a nurse in Denmark – what kind of values do I bring? They have also developed competences in “thinking out of the box” – they see that things can be done in other ways and still be fine.

Going back to the Ghana seminar, I met Francois Tronche, who is a GV member. He has over the years been traveling to Ghana with students from the Marselisborg High School, after they had graduated. I thought something similar would be possible with the students at the nursing college.

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We met a few times and started designing how this process could look like. I presented it at the international coordinators’ meeting and got backing for the idea. A very innovative manager found it interesting and saw it as a way of cooperating with an NGO – an NGO that has paved the way for many and has a grounding in Northern Ghana. It developed into a project that was presented to the cross-cutting international management group, and we make a cooperation agreement with Ghana Friends. GV is very open and positive towards the project.

New group with professional span

It was a bit of a wild idea to get nursing students to live in a small hut in a village and from there go around visiting health clinics. But in the management group, we had courageous and visionary leaders that said: Let’s try and see if it works – and it seems to be working. We have been able to exchange three groups and a fourth is on the way, even with a very broad professional span. The next group includes bioanalysts, students from global nutrition studies, a physiotherapist and a nursing student. All this is only possible due to the great effort of GV. The students are on their 7th semester when they travel and there are specific professional requirements attached that they need to meet.

Depending on their field of study, there are formulated learning outcomes with e.g. societal, cultural or health related perspectives related to organising, prevention etc. First and foremost, it is the students that must learn something in the meeting with another culture. They are not supposed to be teaching in Ghana. It is very much an observational study over 30 days. Upon return, they must make a written assignment on their stay in Ghana and they must put the experiences into a bigger perspective. It is an exchange that involves both personal and professional experiences.

HELLE STENSGAARD KARLSEN

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CULTURAL EXCHANGE

COMUNICATION THROUGH SINGING Leif Rasmussen has been active throughout the 40 years of GV’s existence.

One of the many things he has done is to start what has now become a solid tradition in Denmark: The Ghana Song Evenings at Silkeborg Folk high school.

In 1981, I participated in a journey to northern Ghana. On this trip, the contacts were established to what later became the Ghana Friendship Towns.

Upon my return, I realised that I was facing a difficult task – communicating the experiences and impressions from Ghana to other Danish people.

At that time, I was working at Silkeborg Folk high school, and I thought it an obvious place to start. I wrote many stories, both to teachers and pupils, and the experiences from Ghana inspired teaching and learning in several subjects at the school. The Art Teacher asked an art class to illustrate the stories, I had told them. The booklet was named: Nyankpala – a village in Ghana. It was sold at 20 Danish Kroner a piece and the surplus was paid into a Ghana account. Booklet no. 286 is still on my bookshelf.

Social Science about Ghana

However, more efforts were needed to really anchor the project locally. We therefore established a Ghana group in Silkeborg. I knew some of the members of the group beforehand while others were new to me. The group became the foundation of many new friendships. Now, 40 years after, many of the members from that time are still part of the group, something I had not foreseen. A good number of the group members were teachers. It was therefore obvious to explore how we could bring information and communication about Ghana into teaching and learning at the schools. I contacted the teachers at the Silkeborg Teacher Training College and Ghana became a theme in their social science subject.

Full house at the Folk high school

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The most important idea on how to communicate

conditions in Ghana arose in cooperation with the music teacher at Silkeborg Folk high school, Hans Holm. He was very experienced in composing musicals for children and therefore suggested to gather children from all the schools in Silkeborg for a song day. The theme was to be conditions in developing countries. I thought we should get even closer to the Ghana project and suggested that the songs should relate to the living conditions in Northern Ghana. The only problem was that these songs did not yet exist. There was a lot of Ghanaian music, but in languages that Danish children did not understand. We realised that the song day should serve two purposes: Firstly, it should be a joyful experience for the participating children and secondly, the songs should ensure that the children got an insight and knowledge of the conditions in Northern Ghana. The only chance of succeeding in both objectives was for me to write new song lyrics on what I had experienced on my journeys to Ghana.

Following this, Hans Holm would put music to the lyrics.

We succeeded in gathering around 200 children from schools in Silkeborg. They met at 9am and practiced the new songs. After 5 hours of practice, the children went home and came back in the evening for the big concert, hopefully with as many of their parents, friends and families as possible. It was a completely full hall at the Silkeborg Folk high school. We sang about the tropical rain, when it sets in after 9 months of draught in Northern Ghana. The song was a hit and has been part of the repertoire in all the following years. My assignment was now to write one new song every year about something that had surprised me on my trips to Ghana.

Already during the first song evening, we discovered that the communication assignment was turned around.

Normally, it is the adults, maybe the teacher, telling children about conditions around the world, and the children ask the questions. But during this song evening, it was the children that through the songs told the adults about conditions in Northern Ghana. You could call it a reverse communication process, because parents listen carefully when it’s their own children singing. It was a giant success and now, so many years later, the song evenings are still very popular among the schools in Silkeborg. The worry is of course whether I can continue to write songs about northern Ghana. But until now, I have succeeded in writing a new song every year.

Whether it is good enough is up to others to assess.

LEIF RASMUSSEN

Small photo from one of the many Ghana Song Evenings where songs from Leif Rasmussen are performed.

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COLLABORATION

GOOD AT RELATIONSHIP BUILDING The work in Ghana Friends is functioning really well and we are good at adapting – so we can easily continue our efforts in Ghana, says Lene Marie Andreasen optimistically. She is the Secretary General of GV since 2014: I think that GV has been good at adapting and really good at doing things that are needed in Ghana together with our good partners. We are a relatively small NGO, so we cannot benefit from a strong international brand, but we do important and relevant work and we can therefore easily continue our efforts in Ghana. Our strength is in relations – we are good at building and maintaining relations between people, both in Denmark and Ghana. It is an enormous strength and we need to develop and utilise it further. So far there are no indications that our work will become superfluous. Ghana has undergone an important and positive development during the 40 years of GV’s existence. But there are still deep inequalities in Ghana and the country needs a strong civil society – something we can contribute to.

The members must feel a sense of ownership

I was employed, for the first time in 2004. Since 2014, I have been the Secretary General – a job requiring a great deal of respect for GV as the organisation behind everything. GV is made up of incredible people – people that are always engaged in so many things and have so many competences and skills. They arrange seminars, trips to Ghana and cooperation with many people and institutions such as schools and universities.

The organisation cannot survive if the members do not continue to feel a sense of ownership. That is why the Secretariat prioritises cooperation with and involvement of members and volunteers in the right way and at the right time. It is expected that I, as Secretary General, set the direction. But I am

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also expected to give room to the board of GV, as in the end, it is the volunteers that take the decisions in the organisation. It is a balancing act at times, but it is also the strength of the organisation – and most of the time, it functions well. As the Secretary General, I have the daily responsibility in leading the Secretariat and my assignments thus vary a great deal. I attend all board meetings, work on the accounts, programme development and a lot of other tasks. Generally, it is expected that all three employees in the secretariat are constantly updated within new areas such as fundraising. On the other hand, we have a great deal of autonomy and good opportunities for professional development and ability to create variety in our own assignments.

Got a job in Accra

Until 1999, I had never been to Ghana, and I did not know Ghana Friends at the time. But as a newly graduated Master of Political Science, I got a job with the UN in Accra. I wanted to know more about the country before going and went dining with two Ghanaians who were attending a Danida Fellowship course in Denmark. Two tall Danish guys were also part of the dinner, and one of them – Søren Asboe – was besides being an anthropologist also active in Ghana Friends and had been posted to Tamale with the School for Life project. The fact that I later got married to Søren, was not known to me at that time.

I lived in Accra for three years and on my return to Denmark I read about the Ghana seminars on the internet and in 2003 I attended one, because I missed discussing Ghana with people. I felt very welcome among the members of GV, and the following year I was employed as a Programme Assistant.

In 2013, I left GV for a short period to try something else. I got a job at the University of Aarhus to work on capacity building in the South. But Danida changed the conditions and when I was encouraged to return to GV the year after I did that – and since then as the Secretary General.

LENE MARIE ANDREASEN

SECRETARIAT IN AARHUS

GVs first office was a very small place in Silkeborg and it was manned by volunteers.

It then moved to a cellar in the Silkeborg Folk high school and from there on to Vestergade in Aarhus. The current address is Klosterport in Aarhus, where the secretariat shares facilities with a range of other smaller development organisations.

The secretariat has three employees: Lene Marie Andreasen (Secretary General), Lise GrauenkĂŚr (Program Coordinator) and Inger Millard (Program Coordinator).

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COLLABORATION

IT WAS MY DUTY TO BE OFFICIAL As an officer in Danida, Grethe Dittmer has handled many applications from Ghana Friends - and thus followed GV from the sidelines for many years. She says: When I, for the first time, heard about the Ghana Friendship groups, I was sitting in one of Danida’s Africa offices. A separate NGO office was established later on. At that time, it was the chairman, Thomas Ravn-Pedersen, who applied for Danida funds, and this was the beginning of many years of collaboration. I got to know GV as a group of dedicated, energetic individuals, and considering the size of GV, I must say, that over the years, GV has handled a large portfolio.

I visited Dalun several times

I myself come from the NGO world, because I worked for five years at DanChurchAid before being hired by Danida and posted to Tanzania from 1975 to 1979. Later I was in Ghana and Mozambique. After Tanzania, I started studying law while working, so I am - besides being trained in the shipping industry - Master of Laws. From 1992 to 1995, I worked at the Embassy in Accra and visited Dalun several times - at that time it was especially the folk high school we visited.

The board of Danida also visited Dalun during that period, and was on a courtesy visit to the Chief, who handed the traditional costume to the chairman. The minibus that the embassy had rented could not handle the challenging roads, so we had to ask GV for help to get into the area. GV’s car also punctured a few times, but that helped give the board an impression of the conditions.

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Prayers were heard

As employees of Danida, we have a supervisory duty in relation to the organizations that receive grants, and generally it was my duty to be critical.

I always explained this to NGOs in the way that when they came up with applications, we were initially sitting on either side of the table, but later I moved - figuratively - to the other side because when recommending a project for approval, in a way you also vouch for it yourself.

I remember when one of the major GV applications was to be submitted to the board.

The office manager passed by my office on the way to the meeting. ”I just talked to GV - all of Northern Ghana is in prayer” I said. As far as I remember, it was a request for a grant to School for Life - and the prayers were heard!

I have attended a Ghana seminar, and GV has visited Danida several times with partners who were in Denmark, including Doctor, who was there right from the start and a great personality.

I also had close contact with him during my time in Ghana.

My impression is that there is something genuine in the name of Ghana Friends, because of course there are many short-term acquaintances, but also many long-term friendships and good, local involvement in Ghana.

I retired three years ago. While working for Danida, I obviously couldn’t be a member of Ghana Friends, but as a farewell gift I received a year’s membership, and I have kept that ever since. So yes, I still follow what is going on and wish you good winds ahead.

GRETHE DITTMER

GHANA FRIENDS DEVELOPMENT

GV’s development reflects to some extent the trends in the field of development aid, because in the old days, for example, it was enough to have the purpose of building a school, while today we are more interested in what goes on inside the school. GV followed, and became more process-oriented and good at involving local communities and at giving people a voice. I definitely think GV has been very responsive and good at finding niches in northern Ghana. GV has also been good at adapting, even though it has sometimes been for reasons beyond our control - e.g. when development aid was cut because of changes in the government.

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COLLABORATION

ALWAYS INTERACTING WITH THE VOLUNTEERS Inger Millard is Programme Coordinator and one of the three employees in Ghana Friends’ secretariat in Aarhus. She works in close cooperation with the volunteers in most aspects of her work. Without the many competences of the volunteers, GV would not function, she underlines.

As a young woman, I dreamt about working with developing countries. But I lived in Ry in the middle of Jutland and thought that all development work had its base in Copenhagen. But a Friday morning, I bought a newspaper which had a section on developing countries. I read an interview with Søren Asboe who was then working for the Ghana Friendship Groups as the organisation was called then. I read that they were based in Silkeborg – and it was my first time reading about them.

I got employed as an office assistant in 1996.

Søren Asboe was a part time employee and I was even more part-time. We were in a cellar under the Silkeborg Folk high school and one of my first assignments was to move the secretariat to Aarhus.

We sent out a lot of material to the volunteers, and in those days it involved photocopying and sending as physical mail. From Ghana, we received the financial accounts on paper and then the accounts needed to be entered in the system.

It was a lot of work that we don’t do today.

When Søren Asboe stopped at the secretariat, I became the Office Administrator – it was in 1998.

I got much more involved in the projects and the project applications, which meant working in close cooperation with the volunteers. I have a Master in International Business Communication, which is not an obvious route to be working with developing countries or volunteers, so I took a lot of extra courses.

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More complex for the volunteers

The volunteers were very involved, typically in particular projects, which were many at the time.

Administratively, it was heavy with all the individual projects, because there was always a process, either in finalising reporting or in applying for a new grant.

Today, we have bigger programmes, covering several years. It provides more coherence and continuity in the efforts, but it also makes it more difficult for the volunteers to follow the programme in detail. Obviously, GV would not be what it is if not for the volunteers. We need their competences in a broader sense, and we have big ambitions in Ghana. Volunteers in GV have typically been deeply involved, and they really invest time and energy in the work. But there has also been a shift in voluntarism in Denmark. There is a more fluid commitment and people often engage themselves for shorter periods than before. It means that we constantly need to think of new ways of engaging the youth – the existing volunteers are part of this work as well.

Fortunately, many of the people who have travelled to Ghana, develop a strong engagement and commitment to the country. It grows on them and this includes the youth. I have been in Ghana about 40 times now.

In 2006, I was appointed Secretary General, which was then a new title in the organisation. I was in that position until 2008, when I wanted to try something else after 12 years in GV. I was working two years in the private company, Danfoss, until 2010, after which I returned to the GV secretariat, now as Programme Advisor – later changed to Programme Coordinator.

When people are engaged in something, we need to take advantage of their energy, as it can take us in new and exciting directions as we have seen with the latest podcasts being made. A lot of people contact the secretariat every day, so many competences can be put into play during a day at work. Sometimes we get more curious questions: a school class wants to know how children in Ghana celebrate their birthday or a man call worried whether you can buy sunblock in Ghana.

Inger Millard has been in Ghana around 40 times. Here she is with the Director of GDCA, Alhaji Osman (to the left) and a contractor, looking at the drawings of the factory in Sang.

INGER MILLARD

WE ARE MORE PROFESSIONAL TODAY

We are a small secretariat, so we need to engage in a variety of tasks. Tasks and functions have increased over the years, among others because fundraising has become important. Everything has become more professional and with shifting requirements. I just found an old project application on seven million Danish Kroner – it was seven pages long! Today, an application is typically 50 pages with a lot of annexes. It is therefore difficult for many of the volunteers to have an insight and overview of all the strategies and documents, as they naturally do not engage with these documents every day. Sometimes, they also want to do things that are not necessarily embedded in the strategies, and we need to be open to that.

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COLLABORATION

COLLABORATION IS HERE TO STAY In Ghana, there is a lot of talk about ”Ghana beyond aid”, but the truth is, we live in a global village, and we also need to collaborate in the future, only in different ways, says Ibrahim-Tanko, Programme Director of STAR Ghana Foundation. He has a lot of experience from different positions in civil society and is an old hand in Ghana Friends.

My name is Amidu Ibrahim-Tanko, but everyone just calls me Tanko. I joined GDCP in the year 2000, the Ghanaian-Danish Community Programme, as it was called at that time. I was Programme Coordinator, and to me it has been a challenge to get the two very different societies, Ghana and Denmark, to work together on a friendly basis, but it has also been exciting working like this. We have each had our perspective on things, but at the same time, we very keen to work together towards common objectives. And even though the collaboration has been formalised over time in order to fulfil the demands of Danida, it has been an exciting challenge, both following the instructions of Danida and at the same time, keeping what has made our collaboration so special.

Collaboration is more than money

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To me, our way of collaboration is precisely an example of what ”Ghana beyond aid” is all about.

We have shown that collaboration is not just about money, it is about improving the livelihood and people’s quality of life – and I believe that our collaboration has made Danes aware of other cultures. As I see it, ”Ghana beyond aid” is about us here in Ghana learning to collaborate with other countries at other levels. Money is, of course, important, but there has also, all along, been a common understanding that we are two societies working together. If we had started by focusing on money, it would have brought quite a different working method.

We live in a global society

We have now worked together for 40 years. Is it time to stop? I believe that relationships develop over time so the focus we had in the 80s and 90s is different from the focus we will have in 2020 – but it doesn’t change the fact that we live in a global village. Whatever goes on in Ghana has an impact on Denmark, whether we like it or not.

So it is not possible for us to go back into our own shelter where we are just concerned about ourselves - because when we cut down the forest in Ghana, it has influence on the global climate.

Insecurity in Ghana will, at the end of the day, translate into insecurity in Denmark.

You talk a lot about migration in Denmark at the moment, but building walls or fences around your country will not prevent migration – it is only through collaboration with societies here in Ghana and in other countries that you can build sustainable solutions – because we shall not go back to a world where we just live in each our own silo. We live in a global society, where we must seek global solutions.

A need for clear rules.

I gather that in Denmark there is now much focus on collaboration with the private sector and enterprises here in Ghana, but it is in fact not so easy, because it requires that there are clear rules, that bribery should not be permitted, and that the competition on the private market should be fair.

To me, it is artificial to focus so much on the private sector because the private sector also depends on development work, and you Danes must tell your politicians that you cannot separate the private sector from the rest, because the private sector also needs to collaborate with NGOs. But we must look at the whole context of the collaboration – what can Ghana put on the table, and what can Denmark put on the table – and what do we get out of it, and what does Denmark get out of it? “Ghana beyond aid” is not a Ghana without collaboration in my opinion.

AMIDU IBRAHIM-TANKO

THE VISION: ”GHANA BEYOND AID”

Ever since independence in 1957, Ghana has depended on foreign aid. Without big donors the state budget simply could not balance, and it is this situation that the President of the country, Akufo-Addo, wishes to address. He feels that time has come for a ”Ghana beyond aid” – i.e. a Ghana that can do without help from outside. But he also stresses that it is a vision – only when the country is far more industrialised and better at refining the country’s raw materials, will the economy be seriously improved. Furthermore, the system for tax collection must be much more fair and efficient.

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GHANA FRIENDS 40 YEARS Published September 2019.

The stories from Ghana are collected

by Leif Rasmussen, Inger Anneberg, Ib Salomon.

The Danish stories by Leif Rasmusen and Ib Salomon Translation: Dorte Jørgensen Lone Schrøder Lis Brandt Edited by Ib Salomon Illustration: Inger Anneberg Photos: Clement Boateng, Lars Aarø, Leif Rasmusen, Poul Kattler, Inger Anneberg. We have also used photos from the Ghana Friends´ archive and private photos from many of those contributing with stories.

Layout: Birgitte Dahl www.ghanavenskab.dk