And that's a wrap!

Last night, I read through the girls emails telling me more about themselves. The stories are inspirational - being the first in their family to be educated, losing parents at an early age with no where to go, taking care of a large family with an income of a teacher, and one girl has hopes of becoming a doctor. All of this reminded me of my family's story, which is very similar to many of these women.

This morning, I began with my story. It seemed only fair since they had so kindly and openly shared theirs with me.

My grandmother married at 11, had her first child at 13, had 10 children (1 passed away early on), lost her husband when her last child was 2 months, and managed to raise 9 beautiful and wildly successful children. All starting from a village in Bangladesh. My parents were the first in my family to immigrate to the United States, hence I was the first to be raised and be fully educated abroad.

Initially, I asked the Camfed manager (who bears a strong resemblance to Bailey from Greys Anatomy) to tell it for me, worrying that the girls wouldn't understand me. She encouraged me to try as it would be more genuine coming from me. When I finished, there was a round of applause! Not gonna lie, I almost lost my marbles for a moment. Got it together before anyone noticed and charged forward with another typing exercise!

They spent the morning writing about what they learned, how they will apply their new computer skills in their lives and each told me how much their confidence has grown from Day 1. It was amazing to see each girl stand up and speak, projecting their voices and looking proud.

The filming guy arrived in the morning. My coworker and I were both interviewed, as well as some of the girls. We'll be given about 3 minutes of air time on CNBC showcasing my company's initiative and the work we have done in Tamale, Ghana.

We wrapped up with internet exercises and email. Then the women gave me some lovely notes that they had written which was accompanied by a heartwarming speech. Let me tell you, some of these women speak like they belong on the news (but they carry emotion in their voices). Just brilliant.

Group shot


Overall, it was a great experience and am very grateful to have been able to come to Ghana to spend time with these confident and ambitious young women. I wish each of them the best and hope to keep in touch via email.

Thank you for reading, I know this was a long one :)

She said to me "Take a picture and show people how we carry our babies in Africa"

Day 3: a BIG day

As the title says, today was a BIG day in many ways.

In the morning, the internet was only working in the other room, so we decided to swap rooms after lunch to give both groups a chance at setting up email addresses.

We began with another re-cap exercise. Then I showed them powerpoint and excel which was a huge challenge since they were just getting the hang of word.

After lunch, just as I was beginning to feel extremely challenged at the task of repeating myself 15 times per exercise, repeating myself 15 times per exercise...oops, the habit will take a while to go away after i'm back so beware.

Well anyway, after lunch, the girls threw me a bone and told me that they wanted to take pictures with me which felt like a major breakthrough! Maybe the attempt at relationship building actually worked? Or they are just buttering me up so they can have some pictures of themselves. Either way, I'll take it!

I promised them I'd upload the pictures to my computer tonight so I can transfer them to their USBs tomorrow. Its the most excited I've seen them! Ah the little things. :)

At the end of the day, everyone has email though they don't all quite understand how to work it and have been introduced to all of the Microsoft Office applications they need to know.

Review, review, review tomorrow and of course, the filming.

One of my coworkers advanced students ridiculous drawing on Paint


this one speaks for itself

Day 2 of training: Internet and email?

Had a nice chat with my dad yesterday and he reminded me that I need to spend time on adapting to the culture and understanding more about the trainees and who they are. He's right and so that's what I focused on doing today.

The women struggle to understand me because I speak too fast and in an intonation that doesn't register for them. When I speak to them as a group, very few understand what I'm saying. Sometimes one of the managers from Camfed steps in and repeats everything I've said and then they all nod. Ha.

Today began with asking for feedback...which of course could not be an american style blatant question type of way. So, my approach was to have them write down their fave part of Day 1 training, what they wanted to learn on Day 2 and what they felt comfortable doing after Day 1. Then I asked for volunteers to share their thoughts and each one of them wanted to speak! Learned that they LOVED typing.

With the internet working sparingly in the morning, I had them write some "emails" in Word and we worked on using the Mouse (Mouserobics is a great tool!). The whole day was spent on my feet, going from person to person, answering questions. Exhausting but fulfilling! Felt like I made some good progress today, especially with the ones that were behind yesterday. Saying "Good job!" goes a long way! Loved seeing the proud smiles on their faces.

The last exercise of the day was to write me an email telling me about themselves, their lives and their stories. Can't wait to read about where these women are from. To me, that will be one of most interesting parts of this week.

They are eager to use the internet tomorrow and especially to set up facebook accounts. Though I'm not sure how I feel about spending class time on that so we probably won't....

Day 1 of Training

My coworker and I arrived early to ensure that the computers were set up and so we could load up each computer with the powerpoint presentation that we have prepared. We quickly learned that one room was locked and in the other, the computers were still being set up....hence almost 1 hour delay to the start of training! I'd give us a pat on the back for maintaing a balance of calm and collected, yet letting them know what we needed. :)

We split the girls into 2 groups:
1) those who have worked on computers
2) those have never worked on a computer.

I got the latter group.

We slowly made our way through the first few slides as using the mouse was a challenge for most of them. Anytime we needed to open an application (ie Paint, Word, Solitaire), I had to go around to each girl (they are 15) to show them individually. Needless to say, it was a day of individualized attention in what was meant to be a group setting.

They practiced to type in word, learned to write a letter and other basic computer terminology. We don't even realize how much we know about computers until we go to teach someone!

It was a good and productive day. By the end, I had most of them saving to their new USBs (a BIG thanks to my coworkers!)and typing with some level of newfound confidence. Cross your fingers for the internet to be up and running at a decent speed tomorrow! Lesson plan includes internet and email so without it, we could have an interesting twist of events.

Our classrooms:

Office Visit & more

Today consisted of meeting everyone at the Camfed office where we learned about all of the good work they are doing in Ghana. Some amazing stats of helping almost 20,000 girls in the past 4 years with their education and thereafter. We had to exchange money and were told that we'd get a better rate if we didn't go to a bank....so we rolled up in the middle of a local market, our driver rolled down the window, got the exchange rate from 5 guys throwing themselves in the window, got our approval and voila - dollars to Cedis!

(woman on the right: suitcase on her head and child on her back)

After lunch, we visited a secondary girls boarding school for a special assembly in honor of us. The girls each told us what they were studying and got really excited when I pulled out my SLR. They started calling out "Madam" to me to take pics, pretty cute! One even asked for my email address. My name is easy to remember here (50% muslim/50% christian in Tamale), which is a pleasant change :)

Our training begins tomorrow and will be held at the local stadium that was built for the 2008 African Cup of Nations.

Tamale

Made it to the airport by 5:15 am and waited for the 7 am flight to Tamale. Met up with the other guy from my company who is on the assignment as well. Arrived in Tamale in about an hour and met a few people from Camfed who are here for another project - filming young girls in small villages in the area.

Not too much to report for the day.

Randomly enough, we ate Indian food for dinner. The restaurants here have Ghanaian, Indian and Chinese food all in one menu. Tried Red-red last night, a popular dish with beans, tomato sauce and sweet plantains (kinda wish they had this at Sophies) which was delicious! Apparently you're not supposed to eat it for dinner because its too heavy to digest later at night, oops..classic tourist mistake.

Akwaaba (Welcome) to Accra, Ghana!

Have safely arrived in Accra! The flight was okay and pretty full. A crying baby and man with a booming voice seated in front of me made for interesting times. The woman next to me is headed to a small village, 8 hours on the bus outside of Accra, with 45 nurses and doctors from Utah to set up a clinic. They each had 50 pounds of medical supplies with them as their second bag. It was this woman's first time outside of the US, pretty impressive!

As you can tell from the outdoor pic, we walked out of the plane into the Arrival terminal. Standard immigration area. Only 2 baggage belts for the international airport.

Hotel shuttle arrived as promised. Quick drive to the hotel while listening to Timbaland's "Give it to me" on the local radio. Saw a sign for Nielsen (can you believe it, Michelle?) on the way here and a giant Shoprite. Might venture off to the mall later, we'll see!

Tomorrow: 5 am departure for the airport for an early flight to Tamale where I'll spend the rest of the week.

Ghana'n November

Off to Ghana in a few hours to volunteer at Camfed Ghana for a week!

How did this opportunity come about?
My company has a new initiative where they have selected 25 individuals to each work on one week assignments with non-profits around the world. All of these non-profits are part of our Foundation's Education Portfolio.

My assignment with Camfed Ghana
Teaching basic computer skills to the Cama Alumni, young women who are part of Camfed's network which offers peer support, further education and economic opportunities to female high school graduates.

Lessons will include: navigating a computer/desktop/internet, using MS word, learning how to use the internet and construct e-mails.

Potential and intended outcome of this training
Enabling the Cama Alumni, who are recognized as leaders of change in their communities, to optimize their business and employment opportunities.

What is Camfed's vision?
Camfed fights poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa by educating girls and empowering women to become leaders of change. http://us.camfed.org/

A big thanks to my management, company and Camfed for supporting me in this endeavor. It's inspiring to see corporations in financial services get involved and allow their employees to give back in to our Non-Profit partners in very meaningful and practical way.

Overnight flight to Accra tonight, will attempt to check back in tomorrow. The hotel is supposed to have wifi!