Welcome to the North!

I am now writting from Oxfam office in Tamale, Northern Region. Most development organisations are based or have an office here because it is assumed that most people in need of help are in the three northern regions. According to statistics, not less than seven out of ten people are in poverty in these regions. From my experience so far, there are disadvantaged in Accra but nothing like I have seen on the way to Wa (Upper West region) and Tamale. I saw village houses burnt by a fire bush. Women and children fetch water from the river. The climate is different from the South. There is one rainy season instead of two. The air is dry (Harmattan). The temperature is above 35 degrees and I was told that it is higher in March.

I was dropped in Tamale to carry on my induction with the staff based in the North. The five-day Oxfam Operational and Review workshop in Wa allowed me to better understand the work of Oxfam Great Britain (OGB) in Ghana. All the staff is local and works with several partner organisations to implement different programmes - Education, Livelihoods and Market Access - in different community areas. The Advocacy and Campaign programme - in which I am integrated - is transversal. It includes Campaign on Trade issues as well as the Right To Be Heard (RTBH) which intends to give a voice to the poor and marginalised (women, children, people with disabilities, minorities).


I also know a bit more about the tasks I am due to carry out this year. OGB wants to develop a rigorous, documented media strategy as well as improve its newsletter, 'Oxfam Drums'. I have been told that this year will be hectic and that I must be prepared! I strongly hope that I will be able to travel around the country (going on the field) and abroad (Burkina Faso where Oxfam has a partner and Senegal where the Regional Office is).


Hopefully this week, I will be able to visit some partners located in Tamale and celebrate my birthday with some nice people, like the girl I met in Wa who is Gender officer in a partner organisation. I am at the stage of getting used to the weather and the food and drinks. I get to know Ghanaians, many of whom are very friendly. They seem to like foreigners very much. I think that I will learn the culture by being in contact with them most of the time. There are of course other internationals - more volunteers apparently in the North than in the South - but I only spent some time with two American tourists, three Ivorians and one Danish lodging at the hotel in Wa. Ghanaians seem to be very sharp and it is striking to see that the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) want to make a better future for their country as a whole.