The next day was Sunday. Ghana is a country composed of 69% of Christians, 15% of Muslims and of 16% of other religions and beliefs. Ghanaian Christians like going to church every Sunday as part of their weekly routine, where traditional singing and dancing mark the services. Some people from our team were indeed Christians and we decided as a group to attend a morning service in a very big church of Adabraka “Assemblies of God Evangelical Church”. It was in fact the annual “Children’s Day”. The two-hour service was filled with colourful costumes, singing and recitals, dances and choreographies, skits and much more, all performed by the children and their teachers. It was interesting to watch.
Afterwards, we met up with the staff of Compassion Ghana for lunch, where they introduced to us their national organisation. Compassion International is a worldwide project that helps children struggle through poverty in currently 26 different countries across the globe (East and West Africa, South and East Asia, Central and South America). Ghana is part of them and celebrated its 6th birthday this July. In total, they have 128 projects in the country, with 31,417 children registered (between the age of 3 to 15 years old) and 24,957 of them are sponsored. Compassion International works with ‘Child Development Through Sponsorship Program” (many sponsors are from USA and Canada) to help the child through their spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty in order to become a responsible and fulfilled adult. Thanks to the monthly donations from their sponsors, the children are provided with benefits including food, clothing, school fees/supplies, shelter, healthcare and health education. This organisation is so inspiring and immense, and it’s incredible to hear how it all started with one single man in Hong Kong and now it has grown to help thousands of children all over the world, ‘One At A Time’. In the afternoon, we visited the Compassion International Ghana Field Office in Accra, where 47 members work. We all introduced ourselves and met some very inspiring people. They explained what they did concretely in the organisation, for example supervising the relationship between the sponsor and their sponsored child (letters, mail, money transfers…).
The following day, we visited one of the 128 projects of Compassion International Ghana. This one was called the New Life Child Development Centre in Tema Newtown. It was about two hours from Accra, and we drove through a very rural zone of Ghana, alongside the sea. The welcome we got by the children and staff members was incredible and words don’t begin to describe it fully! I had never seen such a warm, beautiful welcome. The girls were lined up on the stairs; all in traditional costumes, face and body painted and were dancing to music that was being played by the boys on hand drums. It was more than beautiful. Their dancing was so pure, detailed and seemed so natural. We were truly enchanted by this unique welcome and felt very privileged. Unfortunately, this was at the time where I didn’t have any more batteries on my camera and I only managed to capture one or two photos of this amazing moment. Afterwards, we thanked and applauded the children and the staff started presenting their project. This children centre started in October 2006 and his currently composed of 240 children, 55% of them being boys and 45% girls. All are between the age of 6 and 15 years old and 96% of them are sponsored (230 children)! The project children then put on another performance for us, consisting of dancing, acting and music. The whole was very tribal and represented an evil man where he poisoned people and in the end he was sorry for what he did and was forgiven. It was once again very beautiful and the natural talent was breathtaking.
We spent the whole day with the children, all around the age of 12 to 15. We did a lot of games, involving holding hands and clapping and jumping up and down! Out in the sun and on a very warm day, we were all sweating by the end. It was a lot of fun and we were all enjoying ourselves and laughing so much! The children taught us this game called “ampe” which involves jumping up two times and then putting either the left or right foot forward on the second jump. Depending on which foot your opponent had put down; you would win or lose. Afterwards, we had lunch all together, each carefully washing our hands with soap and water from a basin. We had a very traditional and local food called “banku and okro”, which involved eating yam dough with our right hand and scooping it in a spicy fish stew. It wasn’t my favourite dish but I loved trying it! The children enjoyed teaching us how to eat it or what was in it. We then decided to all dance together and play some music. The children taught us the dance moves that they performed at the beginning or our day. This was the most fun part of the day. All the children were crawling of laughter at our attempts to dance the Ghanaian moves (especially me, a white girl - “obroni” in twi)!
After all the laughing and joking around, the children decided to show us the arts and crafts that they had learned how to make themselves at the centre. I saw some very unique and beautiful necklaces, bracelets, earrings, dresses, t-shirts etc. It was so fascinating; all the children were so proud and grabbed us by the arms to show us precisely which one they had made. They were so happy when some of us bought them! The money they earn from their locally made crafts goes directly to the centre.
Unfortunately the day went by so fast and before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye. Always very emotional and upsetting to say goodbye to children that in so little time we managed to get so attached to… With hopes of seeing them again.
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