Should you volunteer in Africa? (the answer may surprise you)

Rice trials with the regional minister of Ag

I spent last year in rural Ghana working on women's economic development projects with a Canadian NGO. In the beginning I was a little naive in thinking that I had found an organisation apart from the rest, above the issues typical in development orgs and that it would allow me to fulfil a lifelong dream of building a career in Africa. But what I learned was that there are some serious issues with traditional development, something I thought I knew but failed to acknowledge. There are also amazing people doing really meaningful and effective work. It is up to us to dig through the noise and find the gems doing the good, honest work that will affect change.

The question remains, should you volunteer in Africa or the developing world in similar roles/ agencies. No, I would not recommend it. But do I have any regrets and would I do it all over again if I could? Probably, because I didn't know any better until I had experienced it for myself. It comes down to, do you want to support a system of ineffective projects based on colonial models of development?

These big agencies peddling volunteer positions do have a great sales pitch to pray on those of us wanting to share out skills and time for good. They also lead us into thinking we are somehow capable of achieving feats the previous volunteers were unable to. They get their funding from governments and large corporate grant programs that enable them to continue the cycle of raising funds to perpetuate their ability to raise more funds. Unfortunately, a very limited amount of this money actually reaches the beneficiaries of the projects and the bulk of work is lost in over inflated reports amplifying little success and sweeping major issues under the rug.  There are smaller grassroots groups that I interacted with that created projects by locals that supported locals, if I could do it all over again I would align myself with them.

Women's group showing their first harvest

My role was as a women's empowerment adviser but I found that the organisations we were partnered with were furthering the problems of gender inequality with widely tolerated and accepted patriarchal structures and little in the way of training or understanding to counter this. They heavily relied on funding from our positions to pay salaries and apart from this it didn't seem like they were interested in the projects success. This was a big issue for me. Since leaving Ghana the women I worked with have had little to no contact with the organisations, and no more support. We were doing development for developments sake and not apart of a sustainable structure to promote actual change.

So if you too are interested in going abroad and spending your time volunteering, please do it. Thank you for your dedication to others and for sharing your time with the world. Here are some helpful tips to get you heading in the direction of a truly meaningful experience for you and those you endeavour to support.

• Shop around, find out if other organisations are doing similar work in the area, is that good or bad? 
• Learn about sustainable development research and projects happening around the world. Does your organising follow those practises? Do you share similar values? 
• Ask hard questions, like how many volunteers have left early, issues with the locals or organisation? Have past projects been effective, is there any proof of this? DO THEY NEED YOU?
• If you need to pay to volunteer it is potentially a voluntourism scheme in disguise, however grassroots groups with limited funding expect you to pay your way. Be critical in your research, where does the money go, where do they obtain funding? 



Peace and Love Women's Group

• Can a local do this job better than you? In the village next to me there were four 18 year old German's teaching English at a school. They receive a modest 100 Euro allowance a month and have no experience and basic English themselves.  Couldn't sponsoring a qualified local teacher be more appropriate? Are you needed? 

• The difference between a volunteer and an employee are often blurred. As a volunteer I was paid a monthly stipend of up to 10 times my local colleagues. Yet, I was still considered a volunteer and by Canadian standards I made less than minimum wage. This difference however has the effect of de-legitimising work that a paid professional might have and furthering the pay inequity of locals and expats. 
• Is your organisation present. Are they accessible to you, are their other staff/ volunteers on the ground? My NGO had other volunteers in Accra and a support staff but unfortunately I was the only one in a remote location. 
• Talk to previous volunteers. I read blog posts from previous volunteers but didn't reach out until after I was in the country. Some of the issues they described helped me legitimise my own personal struggles with local conditions and staff and was not something you could easily pick out from social media pictures of smiling folks. 
• Does your organisation share information, is it transparent? I had little to no idea about other projects they were involved with nor about previous projects in my area. I felt like they were hiding the amount of failures in order to maintain positive image and recruit new funders and volunteers. Ask, ask ask! 
• Research your org! Use sites like Charity Navigator to find out how much money is going into projects and how much is paying for over inflated salaries. Be proud of the organisation you give your time to.  

Saying goodbye

Bottom line is this: I have come across some amazing volunteer opportunities at home and abroad. There is real potential to help drive impact and with the right skills and the right organisation you can probably help in some measured capacity. So be realistic with what you can achieve in a 2 week, summer or 1 year contract in the developing world and do the research to find the right organisation for you. Volunteering really does change your life for the better, get out there and be the change you want to see in the world.

If you are looking for volunteer projects in Ghana here are some cool ones to get you started:

• Dunk-Providing after school and athletic programming to kids and youths 
• Global Mama's - Fair trade, women powered goods that take volunteers and interns
• Hipsters of Nature- "Greening Ghana in style"
• Humanist Association of Ghana- Secular support to protect human rights and promote critical thinking. 
• Farm Radio- Supporting broadcasters in developing countries to strengthen small-scale farming and rural communities. 

More about my recent volunteer project in Greece with refugees soon!

Love,


Melanie XX

"Volunteers are paid in six figures...S.M.I.L.E.S" - Gayla LeMaire 

A Bitter, Sweet, Chocolate Forest

Cocoa Pods

Ghana's main export is cocoa, the bean that we know and love as the foundation of chocolate! My work with women farmers took me into the jungle of the Eastern Volta Region to meet farmers and learn about the cash crop that had taken over much of Western Africa's agricultural landscape. Most of the farmers I met had never even seen a chocolate bar, let alone tasted one, a product of the bitter sweet tale of cocoa in Africa.

As we drove along the red dirt road my colleague pointed out the window "that's all cocoa." I stared into the forest not understanding, it didn't smell like the sweet scent of the Hershey factory I remembered as a kid driving through Smith Falls, Ontario. An unassuming farm appeared through the trees, we parked along the piles of ripening cocoa pods, remnants of the days harvest. We walked past the plywood bins where beans were fermented and the bamboo boards used for drying them afterwards and walked on to the nursery. A worker handed me an opened pod she was taking beans from to plant into plastic bags of soil, "eat it" she told me. I popped the fresh bean, coated in thick, creamy-white membrane into my mouth. It also tasted nothing like chocolate and I spat it out after a few chews, the purple contents sour and definitely an acquired taste.

Ripe Cocoa Pod

You always hear about special Belgian chocolates or quality Swiss chocolates... but these European companies that have grown famous for their chocolate production don't actually grow the beans that get transformed into the worlds famous treat. In fact, 16 out of the top 20 chocolate consuming countries are European. The Swiss alone consume up to 22lbs of the sweet stuff per person per year. It turns out cocoa is pretty good for you too, flavonoids found in cocoa lower cholesterol it was even touted as a medicine for TB and cholera in the 19th century but we now know that was mainly because it helped people gain weight quickly. If you look further at the prolific-ness of European chocolate companies however, you can trace their success to colonial rule and further to the exploitation of indentured workers and children.

The Spanish first discovered a hot cocoa beverage mixed with local herbs and spices being drunk by the Inca and Aztecs in South America. Chiefs and Kings drank the liquid drink as a tonic, an aphrodisiac and supposed male enhancement tool.  When they brought cocoa to Europe it was an instant sensation and the popularity of chocolate has been ever increasing. Since Cocoa trees were introduced to Africa in the 17th century, production exploded and rich European land owners were the main benefactors. The plantations they ran were worked by minimally paid and enslaved workers, a bitter taste in the history or a sweet treat. Cote D'Ivoire and Ghana are now the worlds largest producers together growing more than half of all the cocoa the world consumes.

Cocoa Tree's

Unfortunately labour exploitation and chocolate go hand in hand. If you are eating a $2 nestle chocolate bar it is likely the farmer who grew that cocoa is making less than .10 cents of that. Not only are farmers often underpaid but the industry is ripe with forced labour and even child slaves. If you need another reason to stop patronising business' like Nestle check out The Dark Side of Chocolate for free on Youtube to delve further into corruption in the cocoa industry.  Though we did see children amongst the farmers, it was difficult to assess their employment status. Could they be helping a parent after school or was this a full time job I knew not, but their hands were involved in the cocoa's cultivation and harvesting.

Climate change is a also a threat to future cocoa production as the beans can only grow in a narrow corridor around the equator. The crop remains vulnerable to the expected effects of global warming and the increase of drought and pests. If temperatures continue to rise and vary, the crop may become inviable which means, no more chocolate for anyone. As it is mainly exported (for little return to the farmer) if the market were to crash a farmer could live off of the cash crop and instead would need to supplement with other crops and income streams to survive.

Cocoa Nursery

Working with women farmers we must also consider the gendered component of cocoa farming. Most of Ghana's farmers are women, while most farm and land owners are men and traders and government continue to be male dominated. Women's work continues to be underpaid and undervalued and unconsidered in policy making, which was true in the cocoa forests I visited. Women will continue to play an important role in Ghana's development and through empowering them economically and socially they will continue to improve their lives and their families.

As I continue my work in introducing female empowerment, bookkeeping and marketing strategies to women farmers I will also be researching with by-products that can be sold locally or even wider to supplement their incomes. The take away for you the reader is hopefully that you might consider the source of your chocolate the next time you go for a cocoa fix. With so many of us concerned about sourcing and labelling, Chocolate should not be exempted from this trend. Consider Fair Trade, Slave Free Chocolate and ethically sourced chocolate companies. Those extra few dollars you could be spending might be the difference between an enslaved child and a fairly paid household income.

A Day in the Life of a Sexual Health Worker in Ghana

A good word to describe my day today is; heavy. I came to Ghana to work with an NGO in business development with female farmers in a rural part of the country. I had a moment today as I was sitting in a brothel in the slums of Accra when I thought, “what the hell am I doing here”. It passed quickly as I collected the strength to put on my game face to get through our work. Being confident around the sex workers and their pimps meant the difference between polite hello’s and being taken advantage of.  This is how I found myself there.

            A coordinator at the office came to me yesterday and told me I was coming into the field with her, I spent last week sitting in on a Peer Educator course for male sex workers and had learned about how they recruit current and former sex workers, train them in sexual health and send them out to teach their peers. All of this had been theory until this morning when I was told to show up at a place on the other side of town and to wear good shoes as it may be dirty, which was all the information I was given. In the morning I was contacted by one of the women I was meeting with very specific instructions on how to get to the site, she called four times as it seems they were very attentive to my wellbeing and whereabouts. When I reached the bus depot to transfer towards my destination someone shouted out “Obruni (white person) where are you going?” He laughed when I told him and asked why I would want to go there. Why indeed.

I got off the bus at the designated spot and as I looked around I knew I was close to the market, a busy part of town mostly devoid of foreigners, especially on their own. People shout at me from across the street and from cars and motorbikes going by “Obruni, where are you going? What are you doing here?” My colleague arrived in time to save me from awkwardly rejecting a man asking for my phone number so we could marry and I could bring him back home with me.  She led me through a maze of huts and converted shipping containers that made up the community they were working in, towards their satellite office. As I swatted away the flies I choked back the urge to cough at the pungent odors at every turn.  Frying fish, a dead dog, garbage everywhere, the smell will haunt me in my dreams tonight. We waited for the team to arrive, children running by me and gawking at the unfamiliar visitor, one even so bold as to poke me and run away. As most of the women I was working with had limited English the conversation hung around them giggling at the nickname they had given me the week before “Nana Afia” or Queen Friday, as this was the day I was born which is significant to them. Once everyone had arrived it was time to head out. When I asked them where we were heading and what we were doing they said “Were going to meet the women”, I was really in it now.

Our group of seven women accompanied by three male assistants walked calmly through the muddy pathways towards a more trafficked area. There someone pointed to a narrow doorway leading into a dark room, “we're going in there”. Pricilla, the one who had picked me up from the bus stop pulled me aside and told me “we are going in there, don’t worry they are mostly Nigerian and can speak English”. When I asked what I needed to do I was answered with a wave through into the darkness. As I entered I was greeted with the smell of marijuana and sweat that simmered in the air along with pulsing beats coming from a sound system on max. Women that were casually dressed sauntered about the room and peeked out of hallways, a few men passed through the room, drinking and smoking and not paying much attention other than to stare me down for being the odd looking Obruni in the room. My colleagues, familiar with some of the women seemed totally at ease, introducing me to some of their old favourites. I politely smiled, shook hands and said many hello’s, watching in awe as the women quietly and efficiently set up shop inside. A Peer Educator (PE) I came in with, a dainty, seemingly calm looking girl produced a wooden dildo from her purse and stuffed it between her legs. She then unwrapped a condom and demonstrated how to properly wear one, surprising many of her viewers who were unfamiliar. While that was going on another PE set up her work station “were going to do the testing”, right here, in this unlit room inside the brothel. I volunteered to hold her phone as a light throughout the procedures, offering what little assistance I could in this situation.

One by one the other PE’s would pull aside a sex worker and take down their information and then send them towards us for testing. Just a prick of the finger and 5 minutes was all it took to identify antibodies that would indicate HIV status. I was amazed as this women had clearly been well trained and masterfully processed each women through, giving each one a number on the wrapper from the antiseptic wipe that had sterilized their finger to correspond with the number on the test waiting to be finalized. We tested 35 women in just over an hour, at the end they called for “results, results” and they each came forward for a private whispered answer muffled by the blaring afro beats that filled the room. One tested positive. The one that had earlier asked if she could do anything for me with a wink and a riotous laugh at my quick rejection. As she was told the news her face remained unreactive, she had been complaining of sores on her arms and face and wondered if they were connected. I too remained blank to try to keep the privacy of the moment between us. We then indicated to a supervisor her positive results so they could follow up with her, I fought back tears, this was not the time nor the place for such emotions.

We left only when we had run out of test kits, needing to return because we hadn’t seen everyone. “They are all new inside, so we have many tests to do” the routineness of her statement stuck with me. I was led to the police station; it was good practice to keep the police informed of our activity in the area. As the golden ticket I was paraded through to a constable and a police chief “this is a volunteer come to see our work” “You are welcome” they would say. What was I doing here? It didn’t matter anymore. What mattered was that these women were putting themselves on the line everyday, these are the world’s superhero’s, women will save us all. I’m going out again tomorrow, even if it was just to shine a light on the work being done here.    


Wether your day was light or heavy like mine, I hope it meant something. 

XX Melanie

From Party Girl to Locavore

2007

A wise teacher of mine sent me an article called: From Drunk Dude to Dude Making a Difference, to show I wasn't alone in my struggle to live better. And after reading I realized how far I had come from a corporate, self centred urbanite to...well a locavore. I wasn't necessarily a drunk chick and my house is way bigger than a shed but I can definitely see a bit of me in this blog. I worked in corporate sales for and airline, partied with my friends, ate crappy food, shopped all my money away (and built debt) and Toronto was my whole world. I might have still been doing that today if heart break and boredom did not push me to make a change.

2008

I travelled (nothing new there lots of people do this everyday day), I ate meat, breaking from my decade long vegetarian diet and I had experiences. Travelling expanded my horizons and made me think more about others, made me realize possibilities and allowed me to be who I wanted to be. When I returned to Canada I had a goal of learning more and finding out what I wanted to dedicate my life to.

2009

University has been a trans-formative experience for me. Not only have I changed most of my consumer behaviours but I am closer to finding a 'calling' then I have ever been before. Turning my interests into work and manoeuvring the student life had changed me for the better. I began to care, about something other than myself.

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Ok, so I haven't changed entirely (as you can see from the photos) but how far it seems I've come from my old self. Instead of hopping on the subway I bike, instead of designer purses I thrift, instead of creating debt I am eliminating it and instead of sugary cocktails I drink local wines and beers. I care about something other than my own existence and work at making the world a better place.

2014

This year as a Locavore has changed me too. Learning there is another way to live is the first step in changing yourself. Ten months later I know the end of my challenge is approaching but I don't feel like it will deter me from the lifestyle I have come to appreciate.


Have a lovely day,

Melanie XX

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself" - Leo Tolstoy