Archive for 'Ghana'
After 18 months my time in Ghana is up. In the frantic rush to pack up, leave and say goodbye I thought I would write down some final thoughts. Warmth – of the humid tropical sun, of stifling evenings – yes, but of people as well. The richly infectious sound of Ghanaian laughter, humour in [...]
Abubakari Sulemana Hafiz has a lot to be proud of. He is one of 11 undergraduates who are part of Ghana's first cohort of veterinary science students at the University of Ghana. This achievement is even more impressive as until he was 14 years old, he had not been to school. Abubakari comes from Kumbungu district in Ghana's [...]
“We happy and we thank you Nana, We are happy and we thank you Nana, We are happy and we thank you Nana. Free senior high school, quality education and teachers. Mothers and fathers, aunties and uncles, grandmas and grandpas, help the children of Ghana – by voting for Nana.” This was the jingle sang [...]
As Education Advisor, I am often asked - what can we do that makes the most difference for the least amount of money? It is a tough question to say the least - but usually I respond with projects that help young children at an early age can be the most cost-effective. Why are projects that help [...]
Late on Sunday evening, something happened for the first time ever. Whilst the UK public was frantically voting on X Factor, Ghanaians had been taking part in a democratic exercise of their own. All day Friday, and on Saturday in some delayed polling stations, nearly 80% of eligible Ghanaians had gone out to cast their votes. Then, [...]
For once the streets of Accra were deserted when I drove through them early on Friday morning, the rush hour traffic – blaring horns, crowded tro-tros and overloaded lorries - had dissipated; everybody was voting. A long queue snaked round the back of the school and all the way around the playground at the first [...]
My name is Mac-Jordan Degadjor, a blogger from Ghana and a Technical Advisor on the Ghana Decides project. Ghana Decides is a non-partisan project, being funded by STAR Ghana, which is using social media tools (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc) to monitor the upcoming elections in Ghana for the first time. We're a group of [...]
#Egypt was the most popular Twitter hashtag in 2011, edging out other less revolutionary contenders like #JustinBeiber. ‘The power of we’ is the theme of today’s Blog Action Day, and although ‘beliebers’ might not necessarily agree, there could hardly be a more powerful example of the power of we than the thousands of people brought [...]
Ex-President Jerry Rawlings stands in front of a baying crowd at an election rally, and bellows out to them “Protect your ballot boxes the way you would protect and defend your mother!” It’s a powerful moment from the fly-on-the-wall documentary An African Election which charts the nail-bitingly close 2008 Ghanaian election. The statement at once demonstrates the [...]
If a week is a long time in politics, how long is 10 years in development? Back in 2010, Government and development partners agreed that Ghana should be aiming to no longer need aid by 2020. In the last few weeks we've been thinking about how realistic that is, and what we need to do [...]
