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.
Ashanti Development’s tenth anniversary was celebrated on Saturday July 27. The Ashantis cooked us a wonderful Ghanaian meal, Mike made us a birthday cake, and despite the weather everyone seemed to have a good time. Thousands of photos were taken. Here are just a few.
Mprim is one of the largest villages in our area. It’s already got clean water but has waited for years for a donor to sponsor it for sanitation.
The news is that Softwire, a wonderful computer company, has offered to pay for the materials needed for the community to build itself one latrine for each household.
The photos were taken at a recent meeting in Mprim. The villagers were told that a bargain was on offer: Softwire, working through Ashanti Development, would provide the materials for the laqtrines, but they must do all the unskilled labour themsleves. Of course they accepted.
This is one of the big days in their lives.
We’ve been visited by the agricultural extension officer to check on reported infestations of army worm. Army worms – see the photo – turn into moths, and can destroy whole harvests in no time at all. According to Wikipedia, “the larvae often exhibit marching behaviour when travelling to feeding sites, leading to the common name “armyworm.”
Luckily, we have quite a big farm support programme underway, as a result of which the farmers spotted the army worms early on, and knew where to turn for help.
That aside, the yam and maize crops in particular are said to be looking very good this year, so not much hunger in the villages.
There are two main roads to the north from our area, and we built a clinic halfway up the right hand one a few years ago. Most of its work is in maternity or snake bite and by now it must have saved umpteen lives.
Meanwhile, the villages on the left had virtually no healthcare provision until we were lucky enough to get a grant from Swiss charity BasAid to build them a clinic too. The photos show the work so far. The exact location was chosen by the local authority and is at the village of Nyinampong. Nyinampong people are ecstatic with joy.
Last year we were lucky enough to get a grant for cataract operations from HANDS International and the Muslim Community and Education Centre. Eyes have special problems in Ashanti, partly because of the sun and partly because the area is on an old trading route from North Africa across the Sahara, and the traders brought a very virulent form of conjunctivitis. So there’s a lot of blindness and poor sight, which is terribly difficult to cope with if you’re a farmer.
We used half the grant last year, and then there was a pause while we assessed more patients. Last week, we used the remainder. A report is awaited, and we don’t yet know how many operations were carried out or what the success rate was, but here are some photos of the lucky ones.
Dave came across the little village of Asasebonsu recently. It’s in the middle of nowhere – you can only reach it by canoe. And it needs everything desperately, including the basics like clean water, latrines, hygiene training. The trouble is that it’s going to be mega-expensive to get all the materials safely across the stream. Here’s a video so you can see what we mean.
Last week we drilled two new boreholes, which still have to be fitted with pumps. The first was for the village of Saviour Kwamang, sponsored by a Rotary Club. The people have to walk a long long way downhill to get to the nearest stream, and then come back carrying basins of water up a steep slope. It’s about the worst journey to collect water that we’ve ever seen. No wonder the villagers have terrible muscular-skeletal compression in later life.
And the second village is Onyameani, which we wrote about recently. The water here is stagnant, and home to various wild life – tortoises and frogs in particular – and the children spend their time going to and from hospital. But no more. The drill rig arrived as it was growing dark, and drilled till midnight before striking water. From sometime next week, when the pump will be installed, the villagers will have clean water at last.
