Ghana

Helinda’s story: Life at the factory

Helinda Tetteh, 23, is a quality control supervisor at Lucky1888Mills, an apparel factory that opened in Tema, Ghana, in March. The company has 250 workers -– almost all young women –- and is hoping to expand its operations to add 300 more jobs in coming months. Here is her story, as told to Joe Lamport, communications manager at the USAID West Africa Trade Hub.

I heard about the job from a friend. I had been working in another factory before, but it wasn’t paying well and I was not working. So, I sent in my application and got the job. I’m a quality control supervisor. It’s difficult! I have to make sure the work is done the way it needs to be done -– the measurements are correct, well stitched, etc. It’s tough but it’s a great experience. Telling people to do something and then seeing them do it the wrong way is not easy. I tell them what I want and that they have to give me what I want. I’m learning a lot of things at this job -– particularly how to supervise employees. I feel like the sky is the limit.

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Ghana’s football team gets heroes’ welcome

Jul 6th, 2010 10:55 AM UTC
By Chris Scott

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After their heartbreaking loss to Uruguay in the World Cup on Friday, Ghana’s Black Stars have returned home. The BBC reports on the joyous scene:

Ghana’s national football team has arrived back home from the World Cup in South Africa to a rapturous welcome.

Thousands of dancing and singing fans welcomed the players – known as the Black Stars – at Accra’s airport.

“You’ve really held high the flag of Ghana and the entire African continent,” Deputy Sports Minister Nii Nortey Duah told the players.

The team is due to parade through Accra, to be followed by a free music concert in their honour on Tuesday.

Ghana, the only African team to progress beyond the group stage, went out to Uruguay in the quarter-final.

There were spontaneous shouts of joy at Accra’s airport as the plane with the Black Stars landed late on Monday evening.

Football fans, many of whom had started arriving hours before the team’s expected arrival, waved Ghana’s national flags and blasted vuvuzelas to greet their heroes in a carnival atmosphere.

“The Stars fought gallantly, not only making Ghana proud, but the entire African continent,” teacher Felicia Acheampong was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Ghana’s captain Stephen Appiah said: “We did our best but luck was not on our side but we’ll go to Brazil in 2014 to be major contenders.”

Ghana’s Black Stars Unite Against Malaria

Jul 2nd, 2010 3:09 PM UTC
By Kara Arsenault

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Just moments ago, Ghana and Uruguay kicked-off their big World Cup match. Ghana’s the only African team still left in the widely-loved soccer tournament, so here’s hoping that they go far.

But the Black Stars haven’t just been working hard on the field. They’ve teamed up with United Against Malaria to help save lives off the field, too. They’ve shown malaria PSAs, talked about the importance of using bed nets and other malaria prevention tools, encouraged their communities to join in the fight.

To learn more about how you can help kick malaria to the curb, check out United Against Malaria today!

Tema Clinic in Accra, Ghana

ONE just returned from a listening and learning trip to Senegal, Ghana, Mozambique and Kenya with members of our board and other supporters. Below is a post from Don MacKinnon, Head of Entertainment for ONE’s sister organization (RED):

I have spent the past four years of my life telling a story. Last Thursday, I saw it come true.

Since I joined (RED) in 2006, I have sat in thousands of conference rooms with prospective and current (RED) partner companies, speaking with their sales and marketing teams, CSR groups and even retail employees. And for (RED)WIRE and (RED)NIGHTS, I have spoken with musicians, their managers and their labels. In all of these meetings, I tell them the story that Bono told me, the story that caused me to join (RED).

This story is powerful because it is so simple and so concrete.

Not more than a few years ago, life-saving anti-retroviral (ARV) medication was too expensive to make widely available to the millions of people dying of AIDS in Africa. This meant that when a pregnant woman got tested and found out she was positive, it was merely a death sentence for both the mother and her child. That, and the intense stigmatization of HIV in local communities, was hardly an incentive to head to a clinic. Early on, the story almost never had a happy ending.

Then, through innovation and negotiation by many parties, the cost of ARVs was driven down so low that it became possible to make them widely available through grants by the Global Fund. Suddenly, there was hope. A woman could now not only receive ARV medication to save her own life, but also treatment to radically reduce the risk of HIV being transferred to her child.

Happy endings became possible, and (RED)’s goal is to make as many of them happen as we can. Sales of (RED) products have driven contributions of over $150 million dollars to the Global Fund, of which $48 million has been directed to Ghana, where it helps to fund treatment delivered in regional health clinics across the country.

As I said, I’ve been telling the story of these women for years, but until this week, I’d never met them. That all changed on Thursday morning when, along with the delegation from ONE, I got to visit the Tema clinic in Accra, Ghana. Women are referred to this clinic from a radius of 50 kilometers to be tested, counseled and treated. Virtually all of the ARVs are funded by (RED) contributions that result from consumers purchasing (RED) products.

Dr. Patricia Mkansah Asamoah, who runs the clinic, ushered us into a room where we were able to sit and talk to the women (and the children) we’d been working for. As we sat with each one, they told us their story.

“Meg” had been abandoned by her partner when she became pregnant. Her aunt got her to go to her local clinic for prenatal care, and they referred her to Tema. The counselors at Tema give a presentation prior to testing the women, telling them that if they are positive, they can receive ARV treatment for their babies. Meg told us that before she heard this presentation, she had been unaware of the ARVs and even then, she didn’t really believe they worked until one of the counselors told her that she herself was HIV positive and was alive because of the ARVs.

In her arms was a beautiful sleeping boy. She had received the NPV treatment in time so the risk of HIV passing to him had gone from 30% to 4%. They won’t know for sure if he’s in the clear for another few months, but he sure looked wonderful and healthy when he woke up at the end of our session.

Sitting with these women and hearing their stories was an overwhelming experience for me because each of their stories was a very personal, very real version of the story we have been telling all these years to convince people to produce, market and buy the (RED) products – the very products that had helped fund the medicine that was enabling these women and their children to be here, speaking with us.

Sometimes an iPod is not just an iPod. It’s time to get back to work.

Global Fund and (RED) Provide Hope at Tema General Hospital in Ghana

ONE is embarking on a listening and learning trip to Senegal, Ghana, Mozambique and Kenya with members of our board and other supporters. Christy Turlington Burns checks in:

I met an inspiring woman a few days ago in Accra, Ghana. Her name was Elizabeth*. She is a mother, a widow and she is HIV positive. This may sound pretty grim, but what I learned from spending some time with her is that Elizabeth and her two-year-old daughter Abigail* are getting the care they need here at the Tema General Hospital.

Elizabeth learned about her HIV positive status when she came here to be tested after her husband died a few years ago. She was pregnant at the time, which was actually a blessing, because it enabled her to begin antiretroviral treatment at a critical time for Abigail. Abigail takes a prophylactic drug to prevent infection of the AIDS virus.

I also spent some time with the nurses here who counsel the families who come into the clinic from up to a 15 kilometer radius to be tested. They shared other stories like Elizabeth’s, where women sought them out to be tested and then treated if their results were positive. When mothers have access to ARVs, they use them. And when they use them the chances of vertical transmission (when the virus travels inadvertently from the pregnant mother to her child) are minimal. At Tema, a mere 4% of babies whose mothers have begun treatment test positive. I was told that just a few years ago things were not nearly as hopeful.

Before the Global Fund and (RED) started distributing money to treat and prevent AIDS, there was very little incentive for the poor in Ghana to test because having HIV was a virtual death sentence.

Dr. Patricia Nsamoah, a senior medical officer and HIV focal person at TEMA, told us about the state of the clinic before they received Global Fund (RED) money.

“We’ve been testing HIV for a very long time, but basically people just didn’t know what to do if they tested positive for HIV,” Dr. Nsamoah said. “So when ARVs came, the Global Fund made it possible for us to have access to ARVs. You can at least see a patient, treat opportunistic infections, test for CD4, and at the point when they need the ARVs it is available and you can have a success story. Previously if you were working in the fever unit as the doctor in charge, what you did at the beginning of every morning was to sign death certificates because overnight by the time you came people had just died. But now a lot has changed… I’m telling you the clinic just grows bigger because people do not die.”

Today, Tema serves more than 2,200 people infected with HIV/AIDS in Ghana. These families are thriving and they are hopeful despite all they have endured. Abigail is a beautiful, curious little girl. She is confident with wise eyes that have seen the future.

*Elizabeth and Abigail’s names have been changed to protect their privacy.

My First Trip to Africa

Nine women are joining ONE this week on a listening and learning tour through Ghana and Sierra Leone. Maureen Orth reports back:

For me, each day in Ghana has gotten better. Yesterday I met my first African Chief, or Nana. He was resplendent in a blue and gold kente cloth and he sported a five foot long gold pendant that would have convulsed any rapper—but then you notice the solid gold starfish rings. Nana donated the land for a rice cooperative that was mainly fueled by female labor. The men mostly stood around and watched as the women harvested the rice in ankle deep mud with machetes. The women also pulled out the threshing machine and carried the winnowed rice to the milling equipment. But what was great was that TechnoServe, a US NGO, had given this farm the tools to support themselves by teaching them how to increase yields and do the math that would allow them to pay back the loans they had borrowed to seed new crops. TechnoServe had not been back to this particular farm for the last eighteen months but the farmers had already saved in advance for their next bank payment. If you ask the women what they spend their increased income on, their first response is school fees for their children.

Soaring interest rates of up to 35% are a huge problem for small businesses in Ghana so saving is hard when profit margins can be completely eaten up by interest. We visited the business of Josephine who made small pieces of furniture and hand carved African masks. She told us that several years ago when she got an order for 200,000 units from Target, no bank would give her credit to purchase materials for a month. She was able to complete 70% of the order. But then she claimed the Chinese came along and ripped off her designs and the cheaper “made in China” models undercut her business.

The Chinese are everywhere in Africa. We met the First Lady of Ghana, Mrs. Ernestina Naadu Mills, a soft spoken retired educator who would like to establish a drug rehab center—in the last few years Ghana has become a transit point for drugs coming from Latin America on their way to Europe. She confided that the wife of the Chinese ambassador had given her $5000 for her proposed center. A Chinese company is also building part of a new highway leading out of Accra to the north near the seaport—a sub-contract they won from the U.S. funded Millennium Challenge Corporation. So the Chinese are quietly and firmly putting their stamp everywhere.

Last night we had a dinner with leading Ghanaian women and it was a treat to meet this well-spoken, charming group who talked about the same things professional women in the U.S. talk about—how to break through the glass ceiling, how to mount a political campaign, how to network and connect with one another. They talked about the need to get support in the medium range—not a huge grant for major efforts to combat aids or malaria, but $20,000 to begin a business. This is a country where it is a struggle to convince families even to educate girls at all. Boys still go first. Attitudes are beginning to change, however. Yesterday afternoon we visited Nyanyano Primary School of more than 700 girls and boys and were treated to a dance and mimed play acted out by the students in which the father refused to educate his daughter and banished her. Years later when he had been injured by the wastrel son he supported, he had to go to the hospital, only to be treated by his daughter, who had become a doctor! Watching the children act out throw themselves into this lively scenario in front of the whole school in the hot sun on a dusty platform with a drum accompaniment was really something. The actress on our tour, Connie Britton, said it was one of the most exciting pieces of theater she had ever seen. Later, Cindy McCain nearly got mobbed as she presented two soccer balls as our gifts. To these children a soccer ball is the equivalent of giving one of our kids a sports car.

Today we visited a truly remarkable school for girls, Nsaba Diaspora Community Senior High School, a boarding and day school established for girls from a region outside Accra where 107 girls sleep under malaria nets in immaculate surroundings and supervised by a top notch governing board of female educators who have also established an FM radio station to propagandize about the importance of female education. It costs $600 a year to go there, forty percent of the girls are on scholarship. One woman stood up and told us she sold wares on the street for years to save up to come. She is in her third year of high school and is 29 years old. The school requires that the girls crop their hair because the administrators do not want them diverted from their studies by worrying about their looks. We also gave the girls soccer balls and they were as thrilled as the boys had been yesterday. They have no sports equipment at all. In Ghana, a donation as small as a soccer ball can make a tremendous difference. South Africa singer, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, told the girls that she had grown up in Soweto and that her dreams and education—not to mention her talent—had saved her. When she learned the 29 year old only had one pair of shoes, she gave her a pair of her own and there were tears all around. After three days here, we know we want to support and help not only these admirable women of Ghana but women and girls throughout Africa.

Meeting the women of Ghana

Nine women are joining ONE this week on a listening and learning tour through Ghana and Sierra Leone. Maura Keefe reports back:

These women work hard, and their spirit amazes me. They come here because this farm is the key to a better future for themselves and their families. The transformation that is taking place in Ghana is not unlike the changes we have seen in the States. Women get a job and make money. They are able to invest this money, make small profits, and bit by bit, they gain greater control of their lives.

With greater productivity on these farms, the women are less vulnerable to the whims of the weather, not to mention changes in their government and personal lives. These women prove that they are successful in business, garner respect from their neighbors, and become leaders with the power to make improvements in their communities.

Interestingly, statistics show that women working on farms like these are likely to invest their profits well. Some studies estimate that women invest up to 90% of their extra income in their families, compared to only 30-40% for men.

On a national scale, women are key drivers of economic growth, particularly in the agricultural sector. The farm we saw today is funded through Technoserve, an organization that focuses on providing people living in poverty with access to productivity-enhancing tools like seed and fertilizer. Technoserve also works with these people to develop entrepreneurs and institute good business practices. Technoserve works with public and private-sector partners, including U.S. Agency for International Development and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The rice farm we visited this morning is one of those projects. This partnership is enabling women with greater access to high-quality seeds, fertilizer, and training for their farms. Women actually produce up to 80% of the food produced in the developing world, where agriculture is the backbone of most economies. That means that these women, by showing up to farm every day, are not just feeding their families for the day. They are helping to pull their countries out of poverty and feed entire nations.

Studies show that if women were just given equal access to agricultural products like seeds, fertilizer, and training, agriculture yields could grow by over 20%. By investing in women in agriculture, the United States is stretching its dollars to fund sustainable development that is giving these people ground to stand on in the long term. With more funding for projects like this one, more women and their children would be going to school, receiving better health care, and, critically, would be helping their local economy grow—possibly the most important pathway out of poverty.

We also visited a school that is being funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation and USAID in Nyanyano. There we were able to visit a few classrooms and met a wonderful group of committed teachers and administrators who were proud to show off their new facilities. Under very trying circumstances, these men and women are working everyday to ensure that young girls have the same access to education as young boys. In our classroom visits, it was clear that young girls are attentive students and active participants in their lessons.

Before we departed the village, we were treated to memorable performances by the students. First, the children entertained us with a four-act musical drama that told the story of the importance of educating young girls. The story revolves around a mother, father, son and daughter, all played by the children, and narrated by a student choir. The father refuses to allow the mother to pay for education for their daughter and throws the mother and daughter from his home, his decision has long-term consequences. He stays with his son who does not take care of the father in his old age, while his daughter continues her education and goes on to become a doctor. When the father becomes ill as an old man, he goes to the hospital only to be treated by his daughter. When the daughter recognizes it is her father she refuses to treat him and he begs for her forgiveness. It is only when the mother reappears that she brings the family back together again. The ONE delegation was delighted by the creativity and spirit of our young theatre troop and roared our approval!

An additional part of our send off was a poem read by a young girl names Joyce. Joyce, wrote a poem about the importance of empowering women. And, I have to say, it made me tear up. You cannot help but be inspired by the changes that are happening for women in Africa. I cannot do our young poet justice, but you can see her presentation in this video:

From education to agriculture, women’s economic participation is critical to long-term poverty reduction. I’m convinced that if all Americans witnessed what I saw today, they’d be moved to even greater action to make sure that the U.S. continues to invest in the women I met here at the Technoserve Rice Farmers Cooperative and through the Millennium Challenge Corporation.