"Akwaaba" - meaning 'welcome'

The volunteer programme in Ghana is with disadvantaged young people in rural and urban communities.The work is helping to make a difference within rural schools and urban orphanage.

The programme which was started in Ghana in 1995 by St. David's (Africa) Trust is continued by Africatrust Networks.

Induction course

The initial two-week induction course takes place in Cape Coast before the team move to Kumasi, the capital of the ancient Ashanti Kingdom. The informal but important induction course covers health, dress codes, social interaction, history, regional language instruction and some Ghanaian general knowledge. The weekends include visits to the former slave castles at Elmina and Cape Coast as well as to Kakum Rain Forest with Africa's longest/highest canopy walkway.

In each programme there will be opportunities for a variety of volunteer work at different locations.

The projects helping disadvantaged young people will be those described below.

All visiting teams will have free weekends (although there may need to be a rota at the orphanage) and there will be a mid-visit break to Mole Game Reserve and/or the Volta Lake, one of the world's largest man made lake


Elmina Castle, a favourite for weekend visits.	Heritage House, Cape Coast, where the induction course takes place.

Induction course team with their instructor	Down on the fishing beach.
Volunteer teams will be mixed and may include participants from America, Europe and Africa. There will be selection interviews, a need for references and pre-departure briefings for the teams and their family / friends as guests. Support is everything!

Bawdie

There is a great need, as well as the usual warm Ghanaian welcome for young, albeit inexperienced European/North American, teachers at a Junior Secondary School and a Preparatory School in Bawdie which is the "gateway" to the Wassa Amerifi District of Western Ghana, set about 125 kms inland from Ghana's second largest port at Takoradi.

Bawdie also has a 29 acre project for preserving endangered medical plants which links to Environmental Tourism and substantial Rain Forest experiences. Volunteers will stay in the nearby eight room hilltop-hotel built in 1993.

There would also be requests for many out-of-school activities.

Future users of the Bawdie Library

Teachers and students at the new Bawdie library

In 2003 we started to build a new library at Bawdie.

More information is in the "Volunteers' Report" for 2003.

There is still more needed for the interior of this fine new building as well as volunteers to organise the young readers in and out of school time.