After Togo, WE AfriHug team moved to the neighboring country, Ghana. After traveling to Accra first, the members arrived to the next destination of the project: the rural community of Kpando.
Continuing with the same passion and purpose, the empowerment of the Youth through education, the team joined forces with the local partner in Ghana, UNiTED Projects. UNiTED is a community resource and empowerment centre with the mission to educate and empower by encouraging collaboration and by providing accessible information to the community of Kpando and the surroundings. Excited to work with this impactful NGO, the team visited “Kpando Secondary School”, in order to implement the 3-day Non-Formal Education Training Seminar with students with the aim to facilitate them developing soft skills needed for the 21st Century.
From the first day, our 53 participants showed enthusiasm towards this new experience and learning approach and have been actively participating. During the first day activities, students introduced interactively themselves, expressed their expectations and fears about the 3-day training and were challenged to “find their power” through the activity ”Where is my power?”. During this activity, the participants were asked to create a “white wall” consisted of papers on the wall, where they have to draw their body’s outline on the paper sheet in the position that they prefer. In order to draw it, other participants should interact and help them do it because the “white wall” starts 10 cm higher than the ground floor. Then, each participant should identify their outline and draw with a small symbol their unique internal power. Afterwards, always placed in a circle, a discussion is following with each of the participants talking about their unique strength and justify why they feel that this is their power.
During the second day of the training, the students have been challenged with the activities “Front page”, “The battle of orange” and “The hidden path”. During the activity “Front page”, the students are creating the front page of a newspaper trying to convince their classmates about the authenticity of the news. Presentations on critical issues, such as “Drug abuse” have been done during this activity giving them space for discussion and reflection. Being extremely active, the students worked on soft skills, such as creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, communication, collaboration and public speaking.
“I learned how important is to be united”, “I have identified my power and what I can do”, “I discovered my capabilities” were some of the students’ statements after the end of our training during the third day. After the end, students reflected and expressed their opinion about their experience with WE AfriHug project and Non-formal Education.
Enjoy our dissemination video for Ghana:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS4tW-SxH1M
Now the team is getting ready for the next sports milestone combining the Sahara Marathon with the support of the Saharawi refugees. 42 kilometers will be covered in the desert to show the support to the Sahrawi families at the refugee camps of Tindouf. The motto of the 2018 Sahara Marathon edition is: “42 kilometers of our effort, for 42 years of your resistance”.