Author: Penny

We should be well into the dry season in Ashanti, but it’s been raining solidly for several months. Climate change means that it’s very hard to predict the seasons, but at last it looks as if the weather’s changing and we can start outdoor work again. The photos are of Esereso community, when Nicholas (left, in pale blue) is telling them that we’re going to build a village school to replace the one they built themselves, which blew away in a storm.
Esereso is a settler community. The people came south when it became impossible to sustain life around the Sahara. Climate change has already turned their lives upside down, so we’re doing our best to put it right way up again.

For the last ten days, a team from Leicester SpecSavers shops have been screening eyes in Gyetiaste, and distributing second-hand prescription spectacles which they graded themselves before they came. They worked very long hours and saw nearly 2,000 people.

In most of Africa, a child who goes blind has a life expectancy of one year, and the figure can’t be very different for elderly people. So SpecSavers is literally saving lives, and the Ashanti people and Ashanti Development will always be grateful to them.

In thanks for their work, and for sponsoring the village of Mpantuase for water and sanitation, a durber was arranged for them. SpecSavers’ team leader, Ab Roy, is a chief and can be seen in his robes.

Blindness is life-threatening in the Ashanti villages.  Farmers with cataracts find they can’t distinguish corn from weeds;  women can no longer collect water or cook;  children have a life expectancy of about a year.

Ashanti Development has just carried out fifteen more cataract operations with funding from Hands International and the MCEC.  The patients are overwhelmed by their good fortune.   Ashanti Development joins them in sending enormous thanks to the donors. 

Are you coming on Ashanti Development’s annual sponsored walk this Saturday 21 September? Meet at St Pancras Old Church, London NW1 1UL at 2pm for a walk down the Canal to Limehouse. We hope to see you there.

The photos show abandoned rooms in Mampong Maternity Hospital.  The hospital was deprived of much of its funding under previous governments, and now needs renovating and re-equipping throughout.  This is the worst part and is destined for critically ill new born babies. 

The hospital has promised that it will keep refurbished rooms in good condition.  We have a permanent presence in the area and will ensure this is done.

There’s going to be a great harvest in Ashanti this year, all the more so if you’re on Ashanti Development’s farm support scheme. The first two photos show Nana Ababio, who will start harvesting maize next week, and the rest are of Kwabena Asiamah farming green pepper farm.

Signing the Future
This new signpost stands at the junction of the main road and the Bonkron road to the Gyetiase (or Jetiase) eye clinic. We’re not sure why patient and doctor look so European, as few Europeans are likely to visit – except of course for the Ashanti volunteers who probably won’t be asking for treatment.
The signpost is going up because our clinic has recently obtained government registration and is finally open for business.