Author: Penny

This week, a geophysics team visited the villages of Timber Nkwanta, Asarenkwanta and Nyankomam. They managed to locate good places to drill for water in each village, but the question remains as to whether the water is too deep. If not, all three villages will have their own boreholes in a week or two.
The man in the photo is the chief of Asare Nkwanta, who stayed with the drillers all day.

Lock-down has been lifted in Ghana, not least because of so many people need to go to their farms if they are to eat.  That aside, Ghana seems to have got off lightly from Covid19, with under 100 deaths – though so many people are innumerate that it’s hard to have confidence in the figures.

Earlier this week Ashanti Development organised a communal meeting at Nyinampong where, as shown in the photos, everyone observed social distancing.  We explained we needed to do a pump test on their borehole to see if there was enough water in it to allow us to mechanise.  The pump test was agreed and carried out, and everyone was overjoyed to find the borehole had more than enough water to justify mechanisation.

We’ve just bought the surgical equipment shown in the photo for Mampong Maternity Hospital, who are telling us how grateful they are.  In fact we did nothing but buy the equipment and we’re very grateful to the Christadelphians who donated the money in the first place.

For some time now, we’ve been asking for donations to renovate and re-equip the hospital.  In view of coronavirus, this now seems a particularly good idea.

The village of Nkwanta has just been asked whether they would like household latrines and hygiene training – and they jumped at the chance.  The funding has been donated in memory of one of our three founders, David Williamson, who first explained to us why it was so important for communities to have these.

Asasebonsu is a remote village of settlers, who’ve recently walked south from the Sahara to escape the effects of climate change.  The village has a school, but the teachers have to sleep in their classrooms and only untrained people apply.

We’re building teachers’ accommodation – three bedrooms, two latrines and a bathroom – and hoping that trained teachers will queue up for jobs in Asasebonsu when the building’s finished.

The school we’re building at Esereso, a new settler village in Ashanti, is nearly finished thanks to the generosity of our funders from KTCT.

Thanks to all the volunteers, friends and donors who came to our networking meeting yesterday, and thanks to Softwire, the computer programmers, for hosting us. 

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.