Category: News

After umpteen years and no end of energy, Gyetiase finally has a clean water supply. The water comes from a borehole which the MDA drilled at Tadiesa. The District let us take it over, and Nicholas and Clement have just finished organising pipes and pumps to take it uphill to an overhead tank just where the road from Tadiesa turns into Gyetiase.

A few days ago, Ashanti Development Italia finally raised all the money it needs to complete its clinic in Adutwam village. It wound up the process with a fund-raising dinner, dedicated to the memory of Davide’s mother and Mr Marfo. There is a video at http://ashantide.org/grandi-risultati/ of local Ghanaians, who include some of Master’s children and their friends and families, performing traditional dancing at the dinner.

Our Italian sister organisation now plans to send its own volunteers to Ashanti. If Gyetiase is known by the locals as The London of Ashanti, Adutwam will presumably soon be known as The Bologna of Ashanti. When you’re next in Ashanti, look out for local people speaking English with a mixture of strong Ghanaian and Italian accents.

PS. Ashanti Development Italia was amazed to be rung recently by a Ghanaian man living in Italy, who wanted to thank them for sponsoring his home village, Adutwam. Adutwam has at least 300 inhabitants – so what a coincidence that one of them should be living somewhere near Bologna!

Ashanti Development Italia is very active and have now collected enough money to finish the clinic they’re building at Adutwam village.  

ADI recently visited the school at Padua which is twinned with the primary at Adutwam. At Padua, they gave a sort of lesson about Ghana, explaining how people live in Adutwam.  They invited some Ghanaian friends along, who sang and danced for the children, all wearing their traditional dresses. Children and teachers alike were very impressed.

If you’d like to see a video of the occasion, made by Antonella, go to http://ashantide.org/grandi-risultati/

We are very sorry to announce that Mr HK Marfo, otherwise known as Master, died ten days ago in Kumasi Hospital.

Master was Ashanti Development’s first volunteer in Ghana, and worked for us for many years, initially with no pay. At first he was responsible for all our work, from building the ground floor of the clinic at Gyetiase, to acting as line manager for staff, organising free school meals and looking after incoming volunteers. As a former headteacher, he was always specially concerned about improving education in the villages and delighted when we began to try to address this problem.

Master’s role as Ashanti Development’s representative in Ghana was sometimes difficult, but sooner or later he won everyone round through his steadfastness and persistent good humour. He was 100 per cent honest and reliable and always did exactly what he promised. In all these ways, he gave Ashanti Development a flying start in life. We shall miss him greatly in the years to come and never forget him.

If you would like to send a message to Mrs Marfo, please do so below and we will see she gets it.

Four friends recently joined forces to sponsor the neighbouring villages of Dadease and Mpenya in Ashanti.   Ashanti News 19 tells the story of how, having funded household latrines, they set up a small jewellery-making business for the women in Dadease and are now selling bracelets and necklaces in the UK.

It’s hard to think of a practical way of providing clean water for these two villages.  Boreholes are unlikely to be successful and rainwater harvesting is extremely expensive.  The four friends are now experimenting to see whether local people can be persuaded to use filters for their drinking water.  This is certainly not a perfect solution, but it’s a lot better than drinking polluted stream water and if the experiment is a success we’ll apply it in other Ashanti villages.

Finally, two of them, Dawn Williamson and Paul Bloch, plan to ride tandem through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam following the Mekong, starting in January.  They have set up a page  www.mycharitypage.com/mekongtandem to raise money for their villages.   They would really appreciate any contribution you could make.

Six members of the Leigh Rotary Club visited Gyetiase last week to inspect the work Ashanti Development had done for them at Bimma Village.  They seemed well pleased with the 108 household latrines, the kindergarten and food processing plant, the free school dinners, the farm support scheme and school playground they had funded.  For its part, Bimma was delighted to see them and held a grand durber in their honour.  The festivities  culminated with Barrie Coates, the moving force behind the project, being made a Chief of Development.

Here in Gyetiase, Dave Banks is working as a teacher-trainer to the Junior High School.  He’s volunteered for one year.  He’s doing a fabulous job (see the forthcoming Ashanti News) and we’d love to find some TEFL teachers or other teacher-trainers to support him.

We’re also glad to have Ruth and Sheila with us.  Ruth is a nurse, who worked in Mampong Hospital many years ago.  She is rather shocked to see the changes there have been since then.

We visited the sites of all our active projects, including Awanya to see the new latrines financed by a Crowdfunder project, and Aduntam, to see the clinic, financed by Ashanti Development Italia.  The Adutwam Chief told us “how happy the community is with what is happening and with all the developments.”

We also visited new villages, and now have a list of 26 who would love to be sponsored.  Prices for the baseline survey and household latrines for these villages (we ask donors to finance these before anything else) range from £1,500 to £65,000.  More information will appear under the Develop A Village page of this website.

The two couples who jointly sponsor Dadiase and Mpenya villages are also with us and work on the baseline and household latrines for these villages will start soon.  In the meantime, the sponsors are busy setting up a jewellery-making business and investigating ways of providing them with clean water nearer to their homes.

Background to everything is the forthcoming General Election.  This particular election is  crucial to the country’s future.  The current uncertainty is causing havoc in the villages where we work, and where people of one political party are often unwilling to work with the other.