Have you booked to come to our summer party on Saturday 11 July? Held on a rooftop, there will be plenty of Ghanaian food, music, posters and good company. Book now on www.tasteghana.eventbrite.co.uk
And here’s a photo of our head cook, Martha Boadu, better known as Founding Director of Ashanti Development, waiting to welcome you.
When Ally married Rupert on 30 May, one of her wedding presents was the money to provide three first loans for Ashanti Development’s new microcredit project.
The photos are of Elizabeth, Afua and Abiba of Brofeyedru village, who were the first beneficiaries. They are extremely happy to have been included in the scheme. They believe it will change their lives.
Our annual summer party will be held on Saturday 11 July this year, from 4pm to 7pm on the roof of the Brunswick Centre in central London. Buy your ticket in advance via www.tasteghana.eventbrite.co.uk and you’ll only have to pay £10 instead of £15 on the door.
Earlier this month, Ashanti Development’s Telford Fundraisers organised a Taste of Ghana fund-raiser. It was a great evening, featuring not only some of the best Ghanaian food you’ll find in the UK, but also a performance by Nii Ayikwei Parkes, writer, broadcaster and poet, currently teaching at the University of Aberystwyth.
If you want to see what Ghanaian food looks like, try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeZby806vJ8
During a recent visit to Ghana, Dawn and Paul ran a five day training course on bee-keeping for seventeen villagers. They hope the participants may soon be able to sell honey for profit. Here are some photos. You can also see Antonella’s video of the training at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc59IMJXkT0&feature=youtu.be
Martha’s just back from Ashanti, where she visited a new village, exceptionally poor. It’s a community of settlers from the north, and one of the pictures below shows buckets of the water they’re drinking. We need some new village sponsors as a matter of urgency.
Here are the photos of the commissioning of Mpantuase’s water project, described below. Martha was present at the ceremony, and said it was a wonderful day and all the people were so happy.
Tuesday May 19, 7.30pm Ashanti Concert
St Pancras Church, Euston Road, London NW1 2BA
Tickets £10 from http://ashanti-concert.eventbrite.co.uk or 0207 837 3172
– Henry Roche (piano), Jonathan Reid (piano), Matthew Tosca (violin) and Nan Atichatpong (tenor) perform music by Bach, Moscheles, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Faure and Chabrier.
Saturday May 2, 7.00-10.00pm A Taste of Ghana (Shropshire)
The Belmont Hall, New Street, Wellington, Telford TF1 1LU
Tickets £10 in advance from www.atasteofghana.eventbrite.co.uk or £15 on the door
– a fun filled event with a choice of Ghanaian Food. Award winning Ghanaian author Ni Aykwel Parkee will also be performing/reading from his work.
The second phase of Mpantuase water project (see below) is 98% complete and it will be commissioned by the sponsors on 7th April, when Martha will be visiting.
It includes a bedroom for the caretaker, kitchen, store room, shop and waiting area, which will also serve as a community area for the people of the village. It has eight wooden benches for people to sit on.
The community will decide what is to be sold in the shop. It will probably include farm input like seeds, chemicals, fertilizers, cutlasses etc.
Mpantuase has got a brand new kindergarten, thanks to the generosity of their Chief, Nana Ab Roy, and SpecSavers in Hinckley and Lutterworth.
These photos are of the moringo tree. It’s apparently terrifically nutritious, and Martha recognises it and hopes she’s seen it in Ashanti. If so, it might make a world of difference.
For many years now, Ashanti Development has received grants from a Swiss charity, based in Basle. From time to time, they’d send someone to Ashanti to inspect the way we’d spent their money, and – since the work was carried out by Nicholas – the result was always great satisfaction.
One of the inspectors retired recently. He set up his own charity, and decided to base his operations in Mpantuase/Nkwabrim. There, he commissioned Ashanti Development to drill and commission a new borehole, and also build a storeroom and house for the person who looks after and levies the charges for the water. Here’s a photo of of the house.
The beeskeeping training course ended. In the picture the participants proudly show their diploma. In the other pic one moment of the pratical lesson.
… and speaking of drums, here are a couple of photos of the ones Goldington Green Academy bought for Gyetiase Primary School.
Martha visited Goldington Green Academy in Bedford recently.
The school is twinned with Gyetiase Primary in Ashanti, and recently saved enough monyey to buy Gyetiase a set of drums.
Martha told the children what it was like to grow up in Ashanti, and about the traditions and festivals the people observed. The teachers reported that she was fantastic, pitched it just right,and how staff and children loved her talk, So if you know a primary school that would welcome a talk from Martha – or indeed if you know a school that would like to be twinned with an Ashanti school – please let us know.
More news from the front, ie Paul and Dawn.
Yesterday was the semi final of the Africa cup of nations, as we all know. We also know that ghana was playing against Equatorial Guinea in that semi final. The tension in the village, indeed in the entire country was palpable all day. Would the power supply hold out for the game? Would they tease us by turning the power on at 18:00 to turn it off again at 19:45 as the game began?More on this later.
… we had been making a natural …
No photos for you at present, but here’s a recent round-up of life in Gyetiase from Paul and Dawn, who are organising a bee-keeping training course there next week
*****.
Local news is that the power cuts are every bit as bad as nicholas reports. We get perhaps 3 or 4 hours per day? Today it came on at about 6pm and off at 6:20 pm after a power surge blew the transformer in mampong. Perhaps it will come back later after the c…
Mpantuase has got a brand new kindergarten, thanks to the generosity of their Chief, Nana Ab Roy, and SpecSavers in Hinckley and Lutterworth.
