Progress with Borehole

On 25 May BEHC had arranged to host a meeting between the Premix


committee, the Chief, and the Assemblywoman in hopes of resolving the

issue of how much and where the Premix committee community funds

should go. BEHC, along with the Assemblywoman, Chief, and other

members of the community want to the community fund to go towards

repairing a bridge in Butre. Unfortunately, the Chief arrived late

from a meeting in Sekondi, and the meeting has been postponed. We are

attempting to hold the new meeting on 26 May by 6 P.M. Fredrick Kwase,

the Chief Fisherman (Opofohene) of Butre and a signatory to the Premix

committee, informed us that the document which explains the duties of

the committee and the amount of funds which are to be distributed to

the community is currently in the hands of the secretary. We asked

Opofohene to ask the secretary to bring the document to the meeting,

and he said it would not be a problem.

On 26 May Julie, Brendan, and Mr. Joseph Yankee travelled to Takoradi

to speak to the Water Company Limited, a sector of the Ghanaian

government, to inquire about a borehole. We were informed by the

Community Water and Sanitation agency of two borehole instilation

processes and prices. The cheaper option is the portable system drill,

which will cost anywhere between GhC3,000 and GhC4,000. The second

option is a machine system drill which would cost somewhere between

GhC6,500 and GhC8,000. We will soon meet with Mr.Henry V. Aboagye, a

government engineer, to survey the land and see which option is best

fot Butre. The meeting was very successful and for the most part the

prices are compatible with BEHC's budget.

Progress with the Butre Premix Committee

24 May 2010

Last night, Sunday, 23 May, we went with Mensiez to vsit the Assemblywoman, whom we were originally planning to stay with, Florence.  We discovered that sshe was not feeling well and was unabe to go to church or go to her cassava farm that day.  Fortunately, she was abel to discuss the Butre Premix Committee's resistance to following its consignment with the local government.  There was an agreement that the Premix Committee would allot a specified amount to the community fund, which it has not done yet.  We were informed that the original Butre Premix Committee was cooperative; however, the transition to the NDC Government has dissolved the previous committee as well as any semblance of cooperation to the community.  There are three signatories of the Butre Premix Committee: 1) the Chief Fisherman, Frederick Kwase, also known as "Apofohene," 2) the Secretary, Matthew Wotu, and 3) a man in the village known as "Old Man."  Three months ago, there was a community meeting related to the withholding of community funds by the Butre Premix Committee; however, little progress seems to have been made.  We were even informed that the Assemblywoman, Florence, submitted an application to the District Commissioner (DC) informing them on Butre Premix Committee's resistance to concede with its original agreement to the community.  Supposedly, the DC has done very litte to act on the matter, which caused Florence to recover the application. 

Later that night, we traveled with Florence back to the Chief's house.  Julie notified Nana that the Butre Premix Committee's resistance to hand over funds to the community has created tensions in the village that are not likely to go away until the issue is resolved.  It is necessary to have the full cooperation of the Chief, local assembly members, as well as committee members and signatories of the Premix Committee to resolve the problem.

On 24 May, we spoke with Mensiez and Joseph Yankey in the Butre Tourism Committee kiosk regardinmg the Butre Premix Committee once again.  Originally, we were informed by Florence that Phillip, a man in the village that helped Brendan and I conduct sanitation surveys, was a signatory to the Premix Committee.  We later found out tthis is false and shared some information on the committee.  Phillip informed us that the money couldn't be withdrawn without a meeting with the committee, signatories, Chief, and Assemblywoman present.  Mensiez argued that this meeting already occurred, so why is there a need.  Either way, we organised a meeting that was planned for Tuesday, 25 May at Nana's Palace.  We hope to also suggest a committee to be organised that will be responsible for overseeing the Butre Tourism Committee and Premix Committee to see that the funds are going to the community as promised. 

On 24 May, we also held a meeting with the JSS teachers at 10 AM.  At this meeting, we presented our peer education programme.  The teachers were not only enthusiastic about our project, but about the fact that we are staying for so long and making conscious efforts to integrate ourselves into the community.  The teachers agreed to nominate the students from the classes by the next day and we will personally speak ot these students on Friday, 28 May to explain the projects ourselves. 

During our meeting with Forence and Mensiez, we realised that we needed to postpone our community entry scheduled for Tuesday, 25 May because of a funeral.  It will be rescheduled for next Tuesday, 1 June, so the fishermen are able to be present.

Diving Into Community Development: The Beginning of Butre

22 May 2010

Dear all,

We have officially arrived in Butre safe and sound on the evening of Friday, 21 May.  On arrival in Butre, we were reminded of Ghana's culture of hospitality as we were treated like a sister and brother to the community.  On our first full day in Butre, Saturday, 22 May, we visited our friend and former District Assemblyman, Mr. Mensiez, as well as Joseph Yankey, a fellow tour guide at the Butre Tourism Committee.  It wasn't long until we were both invited to act s intermediaries in community development affair.  "Village politics" or local politics are complex, dynamic, and not accountable.  "Big man" politics is prominent in Butre where the few people in power stand to gain a lot and the majority of community members are not in  a position to argue against the status quo.  Similar to other Ghanaian villages, Butre has a community fund, which is controlled by the local assembly members-that is, the local assembly members have the power to deposit or withdraw money from this fund.  In Butre, there ae two organisations that contribute money to this fund: 1) the Butre Tourism Committee, which puts forth 30% of their earnings and 2) the Butre Premix Committee, which deals with community petrol.  The Chief Fisherman supposedly is in possession of a document that states that the Butre Premix Committee is to contribute a fixed amount of its proceeds to Butre's community fund.  As it stands, there is ony 310 GhC in the community fund, which was nearly funded competely by the tourism board.  This community fund is used for community maintenance and development projects.  Currently the bridge repair is at the fore of development projects to be funded by the community (BEHC is responsible for other projects).  Without the rightful contributions of the Butre Premix Committee as stated in its original agreement with the Butre community, the bridge repair cannot be completed.  We have met with the community mason and he gave us a list of materials that will be needed and labour costs.  We have been asked to discuss the current issue of the bridge with the Assemblywoman, Florence, as well as the Chief of Butre, Nana Agyebu Tsiah IX, whom we are staying with in Butre.

Once we finished talking about the bridge repair, we met one of the JSS teachers, Kofi Amoah, who instucts Home Economics.  It was our intention to meet with the JSS teachers that day; however, we were told that the teachers had left for the weekend.  Mr. Kofi Amoah was able to tell us that the local JSS has about ninety students, around twenty-fiive of which are from the nearby village.  We were happy to hear that there are nine teachers working at the Junior Secondary School.  Some of these are permanent teachers, whereas others are temporary National Service personnel that serve for one year.  We briefly dicussed our plans to conduct a reproductive health peer education programme in the Butre JSS in order to raise consciousness on reproductive health issues from general repoductive health to teenage pregnancy to rape and so on.  We scheduled a meeting for 10:30 A.M. on Monday, 24 May to introduce the idea to all the teachers.  If everything goes according to plan, the teachers will be responsible for selecting two girls and two boys from each class (there are two classes at this JSS) that will be chosen on merit, how outgoing and vocal they are, and their ability to discuss these sensitive issues with their peers.  Starting 7 June, we plan on conducting the training sessions for the students with our selected Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) volunteer, Anita Akumiah.  Julie has undergone a similar training by Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana in Spring 2010 called Life Planning Skills (LPS), so she will also be able to make useful contributions to the week-long training.  We look forward to welcoming Anita to Butre!

We also have plans to speak with the Chief of Butre to plan a community entry scheduled this coming Tuesday, 25 May 2010.  This community entry will formally introduce us to the rest of the community, make them aware of what our projects and intentions are, and how we can help them become involved to promote sustainability.

On Wednesday, 26 May, we will be traveling with Joseph Yankey to Takoradi, the capital of the Western Region, to the Water and Sewage Agency to receive quotes for the borehole.

Fact-Finding Mission #2: Conducting Surveys

On Sunday 18 April 2010, we left Accra for our second fact-finding mission in Butre.  Our objective for the weekend was to refine our workshop plans, have a more crystallized idea of what provisions to bring to the community, and the budget that will be required to bring these materials.  During our two-night stay in Butre, we conducted about 50 surveys on reproductive health and sanitation respectively, which helped us develop a better understanding of the issues in the community, the community’s beliefs on what needs to be improved, and also allowed us to build a closer relationship with the community members.

On Sunday 18 April, Brendan and Julie arrived late in Butre due to transportation setbacks between Accra and Takoradi.  We set foot in Butre around 5:30 P.M. Immediately when we arrived, we met Mensiez, our good friend and respected elder in the community.  We informed him of our mission to conduct surveys and he was enthusiastic to be a part of the process as a translator.

We meandered through the various paths of Butre asking men and women if they could spare some of their time to contribute to our surveys.  Most agreed instantly and were even happy to help.  As is typical in many villages, finding privacy to conduct the surveys was difficult.  Once community members spotted two “obrunis,” or white people, sitting down with their neighbors, church members, friends or family members asking numerous questions, they became inquisitive as to what we were looking to accomplish.  For the most part, the survey recipients did not mind that others heard their responses. 

The first day we spent in Butre, we were unable to get so much headway on the sanitation surveys.  We used the remaining time on Sunday to determine our agenda for the next day.  We planned to launch the reproductive health surveys early the next morning.  Julie would carry out the surveys with the female community members alongside Elizabeth, a woman she had met during her first fact-finding mission.  Elizabeth acts as the Sunday School Teacher at the nearby Pentecost Church and is currently training to be a seamstress in Agona, the nearby town.  Brendan, on the other hand, would first go with the Chief to the District to hopefully resolve some questions regarding the borehole we are hoping to construct.  Thereafter, Brendan would return and complete some reproductive health surveys with the male members of the community with the help of Phillip, a working tour guide in Butre.

On Monday 19 April 2010, we started the day according to plan.  Brendan met Chief Agyebu Tsiah IX and drove into Agona, where the local government (District Assembly) is located. We met with the Conservation Foundation, a water and sanitation NGO that works in the area, to discuss prospects of another borehole. We had been in contact with Mr. Owusu, the Managing Director of the organization for several weeks and he warmly welcomed us.  As we had previously gathered, Mr. Owusu explained Butre has one working and one dysfunctional borehole. The NGO, World Vision installed both machines about ten years ago, yet one was quickly shut down after discovering high levels of arsenic that exceeded United Nations standards. Mr. Owusu explained further that there are high levels of arsenic in the Butre water.  The only way to test the level of arsenic is to dig the hole for a borehole. There is a risk creating a well and having it shut down again, as well as the potential in wasting money on a borehole that will lead to water containing levels of arsenic exceeding UN standards.  To hire a contractor to build the hole is estimated between 9,000 and 10,000 GhC ($7,500-$8,500), which exceeds our budget.  However, if there is a contractor already working in the area, which is likely because Agona is a fairly rapidly developing area, we can ask to have borehole built at a reduced price.  Another option the Conservation Foundation suggested was placing a water storage tank above the current borehole, installing an electric water pump, and setting up four to six additional taps so several people can access water at one time. This option is considerably cheaper (3,000-4,000 GhC) and would give the village adequate access to water. However, because of the system’s need for future maintenance and use of electricity, it would require a tapping fee, which is about 5-10 pesewas per day ($.03-$.07).  While many communities in Ghana do charge tapping fees for better access to water, it sometimes diverts people to other free, often unsanitary sources of water in order to avoid the charges. Additionally, because women are typically in charge of fetching water, tapping fees could further economically marginalize and dispossess them. As part of our sanitation survey, which will be explained more in detail later, we found that after asking, “Would you be willing to pay a small fee (5-10 pesewas per day) for better access to water,” men leaned towards “yes,” while women leaned towards “no.” In sum, the options for BEHC and the community currently are an additional borehole, which requires no tapping fee and little maintenance, but has the risk of containing too much arsenic and may be too expensive, or a storage tank and pump, which is cheaper, efficient, and avoids the risk of arsenic, but may lead to more sanitation problems and may inhibit development of women in the society. If we were to pursue the water pump option, we would look into setting up a committee in the village to manage the funds and ensure that payments will not be weighed unfairly on the men or women. We would like the committee members to represent the various cross-sections of the community.  These plans, of course, are still tentative based on what we determine is our final budget, the community’s opinion, and other factors.  BEHC will hold a meeting with the people of Butre in May to decide which is the most favored alternative.

Meanwhile, Julie began conducting surveys with Elizabeth at 8 A.M.  From the start, Julie informed her translator that she wanted to target women specifically, at least half between the ages of thirteen to twenty-one.  A large part of our reproductive health project is based on a peer education program that is being held at the Junior Secondary School in the village, which aims at improving reproductive health education to the Butre youth.  We recognize that education at a young age is essential; however, cultural sensitization and education for older constituents are necessary in order to ensure that the messages that we are communicating to the youth is in sync with the rest of the community and vice versa.  To this end, the whole community, rather than just the youth, will be having the same dialogues on reproductive health, underpinning our holistic approach.

Similar to the peer review by Mensiez, Elizabeth criticized the reproductive health survey before we continued on.  She informed Julie that all of the questions were appropriate to ask.  Julie interviewed over twenty-five women, on Monday 19 April 2010, which took over six hours to complete.  The various settings Julie was exposed to while seeking out women to complete these surveys lent her a more complete picture of the  absolute poverty that has afflicted the community, particularly women: she ducked under low ceilings in somehow dilapidated mud huts while women were smoking fish, sat in dusty alleyways inquiring about the level of education of a woman that has five children and no occupation, an eighteen year old girl that is busy juggling selling oranges, selling groundnuts, and completing our reproductive health survey, a woman breastfeeding her baby while resting in a bowl near the seashore, a young lady cooing one baby and feeding the other while admitting she is single with no means of making money-these are the underlying realities of women in Butre.  The economy, which is mainly comprised of fishing, does welcome women to smoke the fish and sell the fish for money; however, this economy is not able to accommodate all of the women in the community and leaves many paralyzed without a way to establish their own disposable income, relying on relatives, friends, and neighbors to support them and their children. Julie’s reproductive health surveys aimed at women in Butre illuminated a few important facts:

1. The women feel that they are not favored-that is, they are not treated equally in society.  The majority of women seem to define equality by economic terms.  These women feel that they are at a disadvantage in the Butre community because men dominate the economy, which is fishing.  They are unable to do this work because the gender division of labor in the community designates women as farmers, market women, or caregivers to children.  Yet since currently the market in Butre is barely existent, it appears that there is little room for the women to grow economically, which forces them to remain dependent on the men for their livelihoods.  Additionally, Mr. Joseph Yankey, a tour guide on the Butre Tourism Board, later informed us concerning the interconnected economic and gender dynamics of Butre.  Say, for instance, that a woman’s husband catches a fish.  The woman pays 2 Ghana Cedis for this fish to smoke and/or sell at the market.  The woman could sell this for 3 Ghana Cedis and only receive 1 Ghana Cedi from the transaction.  This is the market price for the fish.  If she receives more money, she is able to keep it for herself; however, it is generally speaking that the wife only receives half of what the husband receives in any circumstance.  This is reinforcing the control that men have in the household over the women in the household.
2. In the Butre community, once a man and a woman are married, it is not a cultural norm for the married couple to use birth control.  Once the woman feels she has had enough children during her marriage, if she wants to begin using contraception, she needs to seek permission from the husband.  This, again, puts the woman’s health and economic wellbeing at the mercy of the man of the household.
3. When asked what the survey recipient’s level of education was, many of the women laughed and said either none at all, some Primary School education, or some Junior Secondary School education.  The reason is because a lack of money and many of the girls become pregnant in school.

Julie’s experience conducting reproductive health surveys was informative and helped her comprehend more fully the relationship between economics and gender in the community. 

Brendan walked around and asked the males various questions on reproductive health, family planning, and alcohol. Most of the men interviewed were fisherman.  They happily answered questions while sitting and sewing their torn nets after the morning catch. Only one fisherman in the surveys had received any formal education, but most of the men had received family planning in the past, mostly from church, family, or the radio. The average number of children the men had was around five, and most of them had their first child around 20 years old. Most of the men were married or married shortly after impregnating their partners, though many of them did not plan the pregnancy. Of those who did plan, they felt prepared because they had a stable job, money saved, and a home. The biggest concerns that we found were the refusal of men to use protection during sex, the high number of sexual partners in their lifetime, and the large number of children born in the family. Many of the men pride themselves on having a high number of sexual partners. Some men refused to use condoms because their churches told them not to, while most others disliked condoms because of the sensation during sexual intercourse. Many men felt that because they were married, protection was not necessary. Part of the survey also asked about alcohol use and abuse.  The answers given helped us assess potential problems in the community. The results show that habitual consumption of alcohol is not too much of a concern, but violence due to alcohol is a problem. Almost all the men said that they had seen someone become violent because they were drunk and many said that they had become violent from drinking. There was a trend of men saying that “walking hard” and “acting hard” was what made them a  “man.”  Some believed drinking was a way to express themselves as “hard,” or “rough.”  When asked why they thought people they know or they themselves drink everyday, there were two typical responses: enjoyment from the alcohol or because of a poor number of fish caught. One older man said he believed people drank too much because they had problems and one young man explained that if he did not drink during the day, he could not feel happy. Overall, the surveys were very helpful in helping us understand the issues that we will have to confront and educate on in the future.

The following day, 20 April 2010, we began at 8 A.M. finishing the remaining sanitation surveys we had left. The information gathered showed that most people washed their hands and were in general fairly sanitary. Most people said that cleanliness was very important to them and that their community was very clean. The majority of citizens believed the chief and District Assembly were responsible for keeping the community clean. All citizens said that they receive their bathing and washing water from the borehole, and nowhere else. A problem we encountered was that some people never used soap when washing their hands. Additionally, many people preferred to go to the bush or outside the home instead of the community latrine. We finished the surveys with more information on what areas to focus on, and also some more questions and inquires into other sanitation areas.

While Julie joined Brendan and Phillip, the translator, for some time, she had made previous plans to visit the nearby clinic to gather more information on its history, staff, resources, and approaches to family planning.  As Julie arrived, there were approximately five or six young women waiting to be seen by the nurse.  Each of these women, some looking no older than fifteen years old, had a baby with them.  The clinic just opened the previous year on 26 October.  Once meeting with the nurse, she was informed that the she, herself, is the only staff member of the clinic.  She is paid by the government and does the following: delivers babies, makes contraception available to the community, discusses family planning, prescribes medicine (from malaria to other ailments), provides post-natal care and discusses nutrition with the community.  She informed Julie that she delivers, on average, four births each month, but does not have a delivery bed.  She delivers on the bed that is also used for those that are not feeling well, or sick with other medical problems.  As for birth control, the nurse surprisingly offered a plethora of different options.  Depo-provera, which is a shot that protects women for three months, is available for 1 Ghana Cedi.  Norigynon, also a birth control shot, can be received for 1 GhC, but only protects for one month.  In addition, the nurse offers male and female condoms, four for 20 Ghana Pesewas, Microgynon, also known as “the pill,” a three-month supply for 1 Ghana Cedi, and was able to inform Julie that intrauterine devices (IUDs) and Norplants, now referred to as “Jadelle,” can be accessed at Dixcove Hospital.  The nurse proved that she was very educated and competent with regards to family planning and birth control and proves to be a very valuable resource to the community, particularly the women.  Cecilia, the nurse, explained that she opens the clinic everyday.  If she is not at the clinic, she makes her phone number available in case someone would like to see her.  She resides in the village of Butre, which means she is accessible to the community.

When Julie asked if the clinic needed any materials or resources, the nurse replied that a delivery bed is necessary, as well as benches outside of the clinic for waiting patients and visitors.  As BEHC sees how much selfless work the nurse is giving back to the community, we are hoping to support the clinic as much as possible, as well as work in conjunction with the clinic when holding future workshops, discussion groups, and demonstrations on reproductive health. 

Yet again, we come and leave Butre almost with as many questions, if not more, than we started with.  As we engage with this project more and more, we continue to uncover the innerworkings and complexities of Butre, or perhaps a trend in many rural coastal villages.  We look forward to discovering more on our next visit to Butre and as we communicate with more people while in Accra.

Best,

Akosua Julie & Kofi Brendan

Global Studies Summer Fellowship Recipient

On April 1, 2010, Julie Ghostlaw, co-founder of BEHC, was notified by Mount Holyoke College's McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives that she has been awarded the 2010 Global Studies Summer Fellowship in the amount of $1,300.00 to undertake research in Butre, Ghana.  According to the Universal Application Funding Committee, it received a record number of applications this year.  In receiving this award, Julie will be presenting her research findings to the MHC Community at the LEAP Conference in the Fall of 2010.


Conscience-driven development.
One community at a time.

Rotary Club Meeting

On Tuesday, March 30, BEHC met with Rotary Club Accra-South District, 9100 to propose our project in hopes of collaborating towards fundraising efforts and resolving sustainability issues after we leave the village in August.

We had gotten in contact with Mr. Robert Mills, the future rising president to the rotary chapter in earlier March, who strongly suggested that we should present our project to the board in the form of a twenty minute presentation.

After presenting our project, the rotary board expressed enthusiasm and suggested that we should send in a budget proposal, as well as a succinct project description, which will thereby be submitted to a West African Development Projects "Bank" in November 2010.  The purpose is to keep track of our personal progress on BEHC and also be able to have the village on file for other organizations to follow-up with our efforts in hopes of sustaining its improvements and growth.

We also received certificates of gratitude for presenting our project and have been invited by members to return again to make future contributions.

Plans for Rotary Club Accra-South District, 9100 and a New York-based Rotary Club to collaborate on BEHC are still in the works and will soon be confirmed.

Butre Fact-Finding Mission: Round 1

On Saturday, March 28,  we visited Butre to further assess the village's current available amenities (i.e. water sources, sanitation fixtures, and so on), its needs, community attitudes towards development projects, particularly aiming at gaining a better understanding of how the Chief, Community Assembly, and notable elders will be involved in BEHC initiatives this summer, and what the overall community would like to see changed. 


Once reaching the coastal community, we were guided to the Butre Tourism Centre.  There, we began to further delve into our investigations on how to best help the community in the short time that we are there with our limited resources.  We met Joseph Yankey and Samuel Mensiez, two long-standing tour guides and Butre citizens.  "Mensiez," as we call him, is an elder in the community and has proven to be incredibly helpful and has sustained interest in the project since we first spoke to him in early February.  He spent most of his former years traveling throughout West Africa and the United States of America as a seaman.  He, then, returned to Butre to later become a community assemblyman between 1992-1996 and 2002-2006.  He continues to play a large role in community. Together, Mr. Yankey and Mensiez informed us of some of the previous NGOs and projects in the village.  In 2003, Chad “Kofi” Hamilton, a Peace Corps volunteer who helped establish Butre as a more tourism-friendly destination, particularly by establishing the Tourism Centre.  Additionally, the village has a Polytank used by one of the local schools and health clinic put in place by World Vision.  The Italian NGO, RC, helped installed one six-person pit latrine in the community a few years ago and is still working with community leaders to carry out more projects.  It has offices in both Agona, the closest large town, and Accra, the capital. 


There are many prevailing problems in the community that either haven't been addressed or haven't been completely rectified.  For instance, there is currently only one functional borehole in the community.  A borehole is  a ... One of the advantages is that a borehole can be drilled/dug and functioning in about a week, depending on the resources and labor available.  Furthermore, the water source, itself, is protected from contamination because of its depth in the earth.  This is compared to artesian wells, which are more likely to be contaminated because of its exposure to dirty containers fetching the water or the hands  of those fetching the water.  Lastly, underground water has no cost; thus, it is an attractive option compared to placing another Polytank in the community, which would subject community members to tapping fees to sustain its filling.

In any case, one working borehole is not adequate for a community of approximately 900 people.  A second and closer
borehole was installed in the early 2000s, but quickly became contaminated with germs because it was installed improperly.  More specifically, we discovered that it was placed over a previous well that was filled with trash.  This, obviously, affected the borehole and makes it dysfunctional.  Residents of Butre wake up as early as 4 A.M. to travel relatively far distances from their homesteads to fetch water.  Overcrowding at the pump is common. 


Apart from an inadequate number of boreholes, lack of toilet facilities is also a problem.  Aforementioned in this entry, there is a one "six person" (3 stalls for males, 3 stalls for females) pit latrine, but it is not sufficient to serve the needs of the entire village. Many residents still resort to using the “bush" (close outskirts of the community) to dispose of their waste, outside the home, or in the ocean.  Menzies and Yankey both believe that the construction of at least one more "six person" pit latrine would properly serve the needs of the community.  Moreover, they both believe that the community
needs a community center so they can more easily come together and discuss the issues facing the village. They said that if a new and permanent structure could not be put in place, a canopy would suffice.
      
After our dialogues with Mensiez and Mr. Yankey, they escorted us to visit the Chief of Butre, Nana
Agyebu Tsiah IX.  Dressed in fine black and yellow traditional clothing, he warmly greeted us
on his porch and agreed to hear our message. We informed him of our plans and ideas, as well as investigated what local authorities saw as problems (as compared to community members, themselves).  He agreed that sanitation and malaria are some of the most relevant issues in the community, but also pressed that the narrow and unpaved road to Butre is a major hindrance to development, particularly regarding tourism.  By the end of the meeting, Nana seemed pleased to hear our mission and said he looks forward to our stay and dedication.  We presented him with a bottle of Schnapps (the traditional gift given when visiting a chief in Ghana) and made our way back to the village.


During our short trip, we paid for a home stay with Florence Abakah, the assemblywoman of Butre. She is a kind mother of four and a twenty year resident of Butre. She owns a small general store in the village and her husband, John, works as both a lobster trader and a head of a church in a nearby municipality. On Sunday, March 28, after Florence's long day of work, she sat down with us on the porch of her home to ask of our progress and what others in the community identified as "problems."  Unlike any of the numerous other members that we spoke to, Florence illuminated the interrelated issues of teenage pregnancy and low performance in school as a major problem in the area.  Many teenage girls around the ages of 14 or 15 years old, especially those in Junior Secondary School (equivalent to Junior High
School), become pregnant by seamen that temporarily visit the community on business and then leave.  Once these young ladies become pregnant, their own financial burdens, as well as those of their family, are further exacerbated because the women are not able to rely on another partner and are not in the position to learn a trade while pregnant.  This reality underlies the continuing vicious cycle of poverty in Butre.  It is a serious problem that resonates throughout many African villages, not just in Butre.  This problem of teenage pregnancy is further stressed because contraception (i.e. male condoms, female condoms, etc.) are not available in Butre. People must travel several kilometers to purchase any form of safe and reliable contraceptives. The other problem with the youth is the low attendance of secondary school-that is, it is rare that students from Butre continue on to pursue a high school-equivalent education.  Many of these young adults are
unmotivated to move on to secondary school.  Most cannot afford secondary school and thus see little reason to spend extra time with school to work hard to get good grades. They see very few of their colleagues or older peers progressing further in school and see little the benefits that come with higher education. Speaking to Florence opened our eyes to a problem in Butre that we did not address in the past.  We have many plans to make a difference in this area when we come to the village in May.

Our stay with Florence was very comfortable and afforded us a great opportunity to speak about pressing community development issues with prominent members of the community.  We have arranged to stay in Mrs. Abakah’s home during our three month stay in the village.

We were also able to sit and speak with Ghali about the prospects of contributing to his independent school. Unfortunately, we have found that helping the Ghali School (also known as "Ghali Enterprise," which has surfaced many times as a fundamental discomfort to the community-that is, that a school for orphans is an "enterprise") is more complicated than we initially anticipated. The Ghali School is a free, private nursery school-equivalent created by
Ghali, a Ghanaian artist born in Sekondi, one of the large nearby cities.  Ghali is the only teacher at the school and provides children free meals and a safe and comfortable environment to learn and play.  There are over 30 children that attend the school five days and week. The school undoubtedly is positively contributing to the children’s development. However, there are problems of competition and incompliance with the Butre community. Butre already has a government-run nurseryschool. It was shut down for some months because of lack of teachers and poor infrastructure.  Now, the school has re-opened with a teacher and it is being repaired by a British NGO. A government nursery school is more sustainable and is integrated directly into the community. The Ghali School, on the other hand, is far less
sustainable and is not fully integrated into Butre.  In fact, we discovered that most of the community members were not even made aware of its existence.  On top of this, it was not registered with the local community assembly.  To this end, there are several members of the community that are actively against the Ghali School because of they feel that he didn't consider the communities wishes and concerns.  Due to the complications we encountered with the Ghali
School, we are currently unable to make any definite plans to contribute supplies and tutoring to the school. We are now looking at the needs of the government nursery school and also the local primary school and JSS to see if we could help more at those institutions. We are weighing our options and are trying to find the best and most sustainable way to help the community as a whole.


After two days in Butre, we reluctantly left to return to the busy city life in Accra, contemplating on
how to create new projects, reimagine current ones, and how to make Butre a healthier, more prosperous community.