My Trip to Ghana - Day 2

We had a range of meetings today at the three Upper East projects in Bongo, Bawku West and Bolgatanga. I had the opportunity to meet Project Managers, Field Officers, volunteers, beneficiaries, community representatives and committee members as well as traditional rulers and representatives of the Ghana Association of the Blind.

The issues arising at the meetings were all very similar: there is a significant backlog of (a) those needing cataract surgery and (b) those waiting for rehab. One common request was for us to provide for education of blind children and for children of the blind. All the beneficiaries and the GAB (Ghana Association of the Blind) were very keen that rehabilitation and integrated education projects should go hand in hand.

Looking at the map of Ghana at our country office later, I realised that we really only scratch the surface when it comes to rehabilitation work; we cover the Upper East region and some of Volta but nowhere else. Of course, even within these regions we only cover some districts, and this begs the perennial question: do we put more of our money into existing projects which are already set up and so can reach more people more quickly, or spread more thinly in more regions? It’s a tricky question.

Beyond this, there’s also a clear need for more (and more accurate) baseline data. Here, as everywhere in Ghana, they simply use 1% as a likely figure for the prevalence of blindness, despite it being an area where river blindness is endemic. In one village near the Burkina Faso border we met three blind people in three adjoining houses; either a massive coincidence or blindness is at a far higher rate than is assumed.

Finally, we had dinner with the Bishop of the Archdiocese and Father Jacob (the Project Coordinator). They mentioned that they were twinned with the parishes of Portsmouth and Chichester – perhaps there’s room for some kind of community fundraising? I suspect that this sort of twinning happens quite a bit in West Africa, so coordination should be possible with a range of partners.

My Trip to Ghana - Day 1
I’m going to be posting a diary of my trip to Ghana in instalments… a little late, maybe, but it should give you an idea of what I did as it happened!

I had several objectives for the trip: to meet our staff over there; visit some of the projects we’re involved in and meet partners; get a better insight into particular Ghanaian issues; and finally to meet Ministers and other decision makers to advocate for more funds to be put into eyecare.

Travelling through Ghana
After arriving in Accra from Heathrow, the first task was to drive to Boltanga. Accra is on the coast, and Boltanga is almost on the border with Burkina Faso, so this drive essentially covered the whole of Ghana from south to north. Initially we had planned to fly, but internal flights were cancelled. Although this meant we used almost a whole day for travelling, it gave me a real insight into what the country was like – the difference between the capital, towns, shanty areas and rural mud huts was stark.

Rehabilitation projects
On arrival we had a brief meeting with the partner running the rehabilitation projects in Upper East (the Anglican Church) and others. The meeting was led by Father Jacob Ayeebo, the Project Coordinator for all three projects.

This programme provides good service to ‘service users’ (as the beneficiaries are called), but there is a concern that the partner is wholly dependent on Sightsavers. In order to encourage sustainability we want to encourage them to find funds from elsewhere as well. For this reason we have offered them help in fundraising, both from local companies and the local District Assembly.

The rehab services they provide include showing how people who are blind can find their way around using a white cane or how to do everyday tasks such as cooking, how you tell the difference between different denominations of money or skills to find wo

Hi, and welcome to my new blog. This is something a little different for me, but hopefully by writing it I'll give you some idea of the range and variety of my work... and at the same time show how Sightsavers is changing the lives of millions of people around the world.

Mostly, I'll be writing it 'on the go', however, sometimes I have to travel in areas which have limited internet access - this is actually true of many of the countries in which we work - so some of my posts will have to be retrospective. In this way, I'm going to kick things off by going back over and writing about a recent trip I took to Ghana, which will be coming in instalments over the next few days.