Day 7: Field Work!

Today was the day we got started our month long programs on the field. Gopi, Olivia and I was to go train 3 batches of women entrepreneurs from a town called Ofankor. Megan, Mohit and Brit was assigned to work with the Dodowa Health Care center to map out the health facilities in the area and to flag malaria prone areas. Cindy, Larry, Yannic & Carrol were to train students Amasaman Technology High School for the ICT (Information Communication Technology) exams which are national exams on computer & technology. Sarah & Jen were to conduct a health training for the women in the community around Ofankor.

We were all excited about today being our first action on the ground. 1 van took Megan, Mohit and Brit to Dodowa, while the second van took the rest of us to Ofankor. We reached Ofankor by 9:30 and Ben - a staff at The Village Net who organized the session for us - took us around to see the town. It looked much like a small village in one of the Southern Indian states as much of the weather and vegetation were similar.

Women Entrepreneur Training:

At 10:30, we started our first session with Gopi leading the class. There were about 12 women entrepreneurs who ran a wide range of small businesses - from a yam seller to a hairdresser to a bar owner. Gopi did a good job of highlighting the key focus areas and took the class through the primary focus areas for the business. All the women were very eager to learn which made the class even more enjoyable for us.My session with the women started at 12:00 am and I saw myself using several techniques I use to teach kids in MAD, in this session and they worked really well! Knowing divide and rule always works for such sessions - I decided to give them stars everytime they anwered/asked a question or volunteered for a role play. Soon enough, everyone was engaged in the session & volunteering to get those extra stars. We did a refreshing 'Gopi' break mid-way through the session where he got the women to move & dance around. This was another trick that worked really well as people here love to sing & dance. The third session was lead by Olivia and it was much like the earlier two sessions during the day. We wrapped up by 3:30pm quite exhausted but satisfied with a productive day. We had given ~30 women entrepreneurs their first 'business training'.

ICT Students Training:

Based on what I heard back from this team, they had about 30 students in their session out of which only 30% of the students have personal laptops or mobiles with data connection. So their the ICT classes are theory lessons on how to use the computer and many of them write the exams without having ever worked on an actual computer. For eg, they're taught that a link is that which get's the mouse icon change from an arrow to a hand. The Reachers assigned to this project had loads to talk about the difference in the way computer 'theory' was taught to the students. They also noticed that the despite not having exposure to computers or internet - they had some smart questions and did very well when asked for the search terms for specific searches on Google.

Health Training:

Sarah & Jen did a good job of getting the women together and getting them thinking about how to get clean drinking water from their neighbourhood. They identified sources of clean drinking water with the help of a map they drew on the board & the women helped them mark out the sources. The women were also given a few tips while preparing drinking water - 1. How long do you need to boil them. 2. How do you store drinking water etc. The class was very informative for the group.

Dodowa Health Mapping:

Megan, Brit & Mohit had to meet the Dodowa Health Center staff and the authorities of the Research center to explain the objective of their program. Once Megan showed them a few satellite images of Dodowa they all completely bought into the project. The team spent the day understanding how to use the detailed mapping data that the Dodowo Health Research center had of that regiong and getting all that info on Google Maps.

We headed back to Accra at 3:30pm. Dropped in at the Accra mall to get data on all our phones & then headed straight to Holi Flats. Evening the group had dinner at Bella Roma - a nice Italian restaurant. I ate Bella Roma Pizzza which was totally yum! The ever increasing fat around my waist was the constant reminder for me to slow down..but this evening I wasn't going to think about that! :)