Winneba

In Winneba, traveling the community and spending most of our time at Challenging Heights. We're working through our partnership agreement with the Director, James Kofi Annan, now. Both James, Kaleigh, and I are more than ecstatic about the immense potential we have for this project. We've seen the land and talked basics. Now, we're developing a program overview and working on our proposal (hopefully to be close to completion before we leave). Next week we'll be taking measurements of the land, traveling to the rehabilitation shelter and Volta Lake, where you can find rampid child slavery.

A few nights ago, we followed along to one of the organization's Community Sensitization events. We went to a nearby community, set up microphones, speakers, and a projector. Then right as the sun set, they began to play music videos and mostly strange foreign films in Japenese (i know, we were confused, too). TONS of people from the village gathered around to see what was going on, and as we had a captured audience, they put on a documentary on child slavery in Ghana. David, the Programs Officer began describing to the villagers the danger of selling your children into "forced work", as well as the legal implications. A mother who sells one or all of her children into slavery can face severe fines and 5-25 years in prison. This seemed to absolutely shock the mothers/caretakers in the audience. The whole event was unorganized and a bit chaotic at times, but one of the most effective messages we've seen while we've been here.

We've decided to skip our weekend trip up north-- Jess has been sick for the past few days and Kaleigh fell sick this morning. Let the Ghana Cleanse Diet begin! We're heading to the pharmacy now to get antibiotics and other meds. All is well, no worries. =)