Hawwa Muhammad Awo Dede Mankatah Chinyere Ojini

GHANA 2008 SUMMER SERVICE LEARNERS

Hawwa Muhammad, Awo Dede Mankatah, and Chinyere Ojini wrote the following narratives for the CAS Fall 2008 newsletter.

Hawwa Muhammad
The question of how social philanthropy works has never failed to incite my curiosities about the nature of giving and the beneficiaries of economic growth. After being selected to intern at a women’s organization in Ghana, the excitement of being able to juxtapose my passions with practice in a country like Ghana thrilled me.

As it stands, prior to attaining this internship, I have always been impassioned by issues regarding women. Hence once the opportunity to work directly with women and contribute to the work being done here presented itself, I immediately seized it.

What then began to appeal to me, was the science inherent in the process of funding and how this translates to empowering the recipients of aid. The idea of social philanthropy began to become more appealing to me as I began to reflect on the way in which aid is given to Africa and how institutions are upheld or rather why they become obsolete as a result of funding. This begged the question of whether the funding with which organizations are endowed encourages self-reliance; does this funding encourage capacity building?

After discussing more of the placement options I would have once the two interns and I would have arrived to Ghana, Dr. Busia steered me towards the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) which, I was happy to learn, encouraged the capacity building I had intended to study. I was pleased to learn about the strategic ways in which funding was established by the AWDF so as to foster the type of social philanthropy that will enable institutions and organizations seeking assistance to remain strong and to not have to depend upon the financial support of the AWDF. To this extent the AWDF does more than endow. They create a cyclic process which enables women and their organizations to remain self-sustained. This empowerment creates a stronger ability for these once struggling organizations to promote programs which spread awareness across the continent of Africa about issues which threaten the progress of women’s rights in Africa. Within this structure the AWDF addresses an issue which many institutions fail to even acknowledge: how to negotiate the incorporation of endowing a program in addition to empowering and more importantly educating its recipients.

During the latter part of the month, I will also intern at WISE (Women’s Initiative for Self Empowerment) where I will work with women from the largest refugee camp for Liberians in Ghana I am very excited about what I have learned thus far and look forward to all that I will soon encounter.

Awo Dede Mankatah
Since I have been in Ghana, it has been one learning experience after another. I learned about the many women’s organizations that exist. I had the honor of participating in a women’s caucus where they discussed prevailing issues that are currently affecting their lives. It was very interesting to see so many successful entrepreneurial women come together to discuss the social prejudices that they still face despite their success. Moreover, I chose to work with an organization called W.I.S.E (Women’s Initiative for Self Empowerment). At W.I.S.E I will be creating a
sex-education program to present to some of the refugees at the Liberian refugee camp in Ghana. So far, I am learning about the different issues that the refugees are facing and how I can create a program that will facilitate healthy and safe sexual health while promoting AIDS testing.

Chinyere Ojini
I am currently interning at the Foundation for Female Photojournalists (FFP). The director and founder of the not for profit organization is very warm and overall spectacular. She is determined to make me learn from this experience. I am being exposed to so many different areas of journalism that I am sure that by the end of this internship, I will be able to make a decision as to where I would work as a career. Currently, I am independently working on four tasks.

The organization has a website that gives current news updates along with information about in-process fundraising projects. I am in charge of creating and sending a mass email of the newsletter. I have also been assigned to create a photo documentary of the heavy influence that religion has in Ghana. For example, one can find a religious reference on the back of taxis, a major form of transport, and even as the names of businesses (ex: By His Grace Fashion). I will also be the representative of the organization, go to events and conferences, then write reports on what occurred.

Shortly, I will be working with the Women’s Initiative for Self Empowerment (WISE) at the Liberian refugee camp with the program to teach 50 select women sewing, hair dressing, computer database, and computer programming. This program enables these women, most of them teenage mothers, to develop a skill set so that whether they decide to remain in Ghana, move back to Liberia, or move to another country, they will be able to support themselves and their families. Because I will be interning at both organizations simultaneously, I will also work on another photo documentary capturing the lives of female teenagers living as refugees. For WISE, I hope to work at the school and act as a teacher’s aid to keep all students at the same pace. This has truly been a wonderful experience and I have learned so much in such a short amount of time through the internship and interaction with people in general. It is truly a life changing experience!