Pavlis Honors College Blog

Category: Global and Community Engagement

Goats, Elephants, and Monkeys, Oh My!

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You’re not Ghana believe all that the Ghana Goats did during our second full week! It was jam-packed with new people, new experiences, and new places. We really kicked off the week by heading to Babianiha via trotro and taxi to stay at the house of a long time contact in country. Once there, we were greeted with a delicious traditional Ghanaian meal and were shown to the house we would be occupying. It was nice to get to know Ebenezer, a member of the Opuni family, and he told us the origins of Babianiha, which actually means “Everywhere is here,” in the local language. He says it means that everybody should feel at home in Babianiha because their home is here. After getting settled in, we reconvened with the family and talked about how we were going to complete the projects we had planned on. That night was spent lesson planning and brainstorming how to engage with the students with a limited time frame. 

The next morning, we were introduced to the headmaster of the local schools, Watuza, and he went over the school’s needs and wants from us and helped direct us in our activity planning. From there, we were introduced to the teachers at the Junior High, the main students we would be interacting with. We immediately dove into activities and did a lesson bridges with the students. After teaching them four basic structures, we gave the students some basic building materials and tasked them with building their own bridges in small groups. Once the students had made a final product, we used weights to test the strength of them. Throughout the activity, the laughs of students and staff alike could be heard around the room. At the end, we presented a large suitcase full of donated educational books to the teachers to be used in the community center. We used the rest of the day to continue to explore project opportunities for future teams and plan for our women’s health workshop during the next morning. 

Presenting the books we brought for the Babianiha Community Center to staff at the Babianiha JHS
Students watching to see if their bridge will hold the weight that Tristan is adding

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When morning came, we got up extra early to meet with the elders of the village. After we had a conversation with them, they were glad to hear of our success and offered any assistance we may need to complete any of our projects. From there, we ate a quick breakfast and headed over to the school to work with the young women there. During this, Tristan broke off to continue talking with the headmaster and explore what projects they might need help with now or in the future. During the workshop, we worked with the women to help them sew and create reusable menstrual pads. We also talked with them on the importance of practicing good hygiene and other suitable topics for a group of young women. 

Young women sewing together reusable sani-pads in Babianiha

One of our favorite parts about visiting Babianiha was visiting the local monkey sanctuary. It was beautiful to see the enormous groves of bamboo, and slightly unsettling to hear rustling from above us until eventually monkeys seemed to materialize from thin air. The fact that we brought bananas to bribe them, excuse us, feed them, helped. They would snatch the bananas and corn right out of our hands, and some of them definitely seemed to be posing for their pictures. It is local belief that these monkeys contain the spirits of the ancestors, so they are treated very well, and it is considered disgraceful to harm them.

Group picture at the monkey sanctuary courtesy of Evans
Hungry monkeys!

 

During the course of the few days we were in Babianiha, we befriended a good portion of the younger school children which resulted in a lot of them following us around town hoping to hold our hands or eerie chanting coming from the occasional hut where the children were trying to welcome us. (Lucinda was their favorite) After our projects finished up, we got ready to head back to Sunyani with Evans, a university student, our local guide, and a part of the family we were staying with. 

Babianiha children making funny faces at Lucinda

On Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early to pack into a car for our first mini-vacation of our experience here. We were taking a trip up to Mole National Park for some much needed R&R and a safari. The trip started off rocky- flat tires, potential speeding tickets, and lost reservations- but everything turned out great and we had the privilege of experiencing the natural beauty of the Savannah and Ghana. 

Getting ready to go on our safari ft. Evans!
We were probably too close to the elephants, but our guide didn’t seem to be concerned
A gorgeous view of the reservoir from the Mole Motel
Tristan climbed the tree first…
Lucinda did too…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I guess you could say we succumb to peer pressure

Another early morning for a safari was just the adventure the team needed to start the day and we were blessed with tons of elephants to see. A few baboons and deer also made an appearance and made the experience all the more memorable. We checked out of our lodge and headed back to Sunyani that night, celebrating our successful vacation and planning our next steps with a renewed passion after our much needed break. Monday morning saw the departure of our new friend Evans and the team settled in for another bout of meetings and planning to finalize the plans for our last few weeks in Ghana.

It is crazy to think that as we are writing this we are over halfway done with our journey here in Ghana. Stay tuned for updates on our next round of adventures back in Sunyani. 

–Becky, Lucinda, and Tristan

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Wiki Mbili – The Tanzania Tree Huggers Get to Boma

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Hujambo from Tanzania! This week, the Tanzania Tree Huggers moved to Boma Ng’ombe where we will be staying for the remainder of the trip. On Friday, we said our good-byes at Old Moshi Hostel and Tesha picked us up. We would be staying at John’s house, a friendly man with a passion for gardening, for the next 3.5 weeks. It was exciting getting to start this leg of the trip because we knew that we were going to have a great time working at both Nkwamakuu primary school and Orkolili secondary school.

On saturday, we got to go on one of the most exciting parts of the trip – a safari! We headed to Snowview Hotel to meet the tour guide before dawn before heading to Arusha (about an hour away) to pick up Mary who had just come in from Kenya the night before. Our guide picked up our lunchboxes and we were off to Tarangire National Park. It was about 2 hours further but along the way, we got to see Maasai herding their cows and a lot of the more rural parts of Tanzania. On the safari, we saw wildebeests, ostriches, antelope, elephants, giraffes, cheetah, a whole bunch of zebras, and nine lions! A monkey even managed to steal Madi’s sandwich!

After such an eventful day, we mostly used Sunday to rest up before starting in the schools that week. Monday was dedicated to going to the district office for the schools and talking to the folks over at Nkwamakuu and Orkolili about what their expectations and goals were for our time with them. Nkwamakuu encouraged us to pursue a project of our choice and to teach everyday while Orkolili invited us to attend a science fair with them in Moshi, teach, and help teach a class on PowerPoint to teachers the following day.

Tuesday was our first real day in the school and it was a whirlwind. We started the day by giving lessons in mathematics and science to the standard seven class at Nkwamakuu before jumping in a bajaji and heading to Orkolili. We spent 3.5 hours working with the teachers on their PowerPoint skills and then they created a slideshow to present to the group about the topic they normally teach. There was a lot of enthusiasm from some of the teachers who did not have much prior experience with PowerPoint but saw how it could be beneficial to their arsenal of teaching methods.

 

Wednesday was the first day that we got to spend entirely at Nkwamakuu. We planned to go back to the standard seven class and work on english and mathematics. The activity that we had planned to make teaching english more engaging was to play a form of charades where the students got to act out things written on the board like animals, activities, and responsibilities. One of our favorites was the group of students acting out elephant turned their school sweaters into trunks. After our lessons, we enjoyed breakfast before going and observing standard four, the class we were planning on teaching next. We wanted to get a feel for what they were learning and what methods the teachers used so we sat in on mathematics and swahili. Before heading out, we had some lunch and played a million rounds of patty cake with the kids!

Week two was an exciting one! We can’t wait to see what will be in store for us week three!

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Peru Week 1: Making a Plan

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Throughout our first week in Peru, we met a lot of people and saw a lot of sights (and tried Picarones for the first time! A fried sweet potato delicacy). In the first few days, we got familiar with the area and met with two possible project sites: Huntapasqa and Casa de Panchita.

CASA DE PANCHITA

Casa de Panchita is an organization with a well-established structure in the district of Lince in the city of Lima. This organization does a lot of things that involve teaching children. This includes English classes and a variety of different workshops that go over important topics that aren’t necessarily taught in their schools. Things like proper diet, cleaning, and sexual education. This week we helped them transition into a new office space and organize donations into gift bags for kids. We hope to have a design thinking workshop put together for them, but first, we will help them prepare and celebrate their 3oth anniversary on Sunday, July 15th!

 

 

 

HUNTAPASQA

Huntapasqa is an NGO in the lower-income area of Pamplona (Pamplona Alta). This organization has built a safe area for the local children to come to after school to get help on their homework. They also try to incorporate educational activities that are fun for the kids. A lot of the children in the area don’t have ideal home lives and live with single mothers. Huntapasqa brings the children together and creates a community where they can always reach out to for help. So far, we have had several meetings with the leaders of Huntapasqa to see what their organization is about and how we can benefit them the most. The first concern they already knew they needed help with is designing a website where people can reach out to them to sign up their kids in the program, options for volunteering, and a way to accept donations online. Over this next week, we will be hosting a design thinking workshop with the Huntapasqa leaders and other adults in the community to dig deeper and learn the best ways we can help them and make this a site for Pavlis projects for years to come. In the following pictures, you can see (from left to right) Nic and I were in Eveli’s house with our site coordinator, Carlos Amador, and the three women that started Huntapasqa, Nataly, Rocio, and Eveli. The next two pictures show the outside of their site in Pamplona Alta (in San Juan of Miraflores) and the last picture is of all the kids that participate in the afterschool session.

           

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Goats on the Go!

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The Ghana Goats made the final leg of our journey into Sunyani on Saturday. We will be staying on the campus of the University of Energy and Natural Resources for the rest of our time in Ghana, with small excursions into other areas of the country. As soon as we moved into the dorms, we hit the ground running with meetings with contacts and visiting key areas like the market. At first, we were all a little overwhelmed by the new area, but we managed to survive on our own in the market to get supplies for dinner- even if it was just plain rice with fried vegetables on top. 

The next morning, we got up early and made the trip to Babianeha with Dr. Opuni, a key contact for the program here in Ghana, who drove us and even introduced us to some great bread on the way. Once in Babianeha, we met with the Opuni family and exchanged contact information. For a quick excursion, we hiked out to the egg farm and met with some more of the family. After that, we walked over to where the schools and community center are, the two main locations where we will be working. With Dr. Opuni as our guide, we ventured into the border town separating Ghana and Ivory Coast to meet some more people who will help us be successful during our time there. After a quick lunch back at the Opuni house, the team traveled back to Sunyani for some more exploration of useful locations. 

Becky, Lucinda, and Tristan in Babianeha.
Standing at the border of Ghana and the Ivory Coast with Emmanuel and Kwajo Opuni.

The next morning, the team spent our last day with Andrew, our advisor, by meeting Nana’s mother who runs a pharmacy, meeting the headmaster of the Ridge Experimental Schools, and locating the trotro station that will eventually allow us to travel back to Babianeha at a later date. While we had prepared some ideas for activities for the schools, we didn’t want to do something with the students if it was ultimately irrelevant to their studies, so we asked the headmaster what they would like us to teach while we are there. There was some exchange on what we could feasibly teach them without going outside of our abilities and it was decided we would teach basic electronics to two classes on Wednesday (today) and math to one class on Thursday (tomorrow). Armed with only some photos of a textbook, a science kit, and a general idea of a syllabus, the team headed out. 

The trotro station that will take us from Sunyani to Dormaa on our way to Babianeha.

Yesterday, the team spent the entire day researching activities for basic circuits and using the kits to build engaging projects for the students. After several hours of Google, trial and error, and a nap break, the team had a lesson plan for both levels we would be teaching. We had an early night last night to allow us enough sleep to get to the schools by 7:30AM to meet the teachers again and be introduced to the classes. 

Becky and Tristan designing circuits to be used with Ridge Experimental School students

The first class we taught had a little bit of a rough start, but, with some good communication, we settled into a rhythm. Soon, the students were building little circuits of their own and engaging with us on the activity. The second form was a little bit older and had a bit more knowledge about the circuits we were building, though they had not worked with the science kits from the school before. Our activity got off to a rough start, but we made our way around the room to help the students and everyone, including us, seemed to have learned a bit from it. Our final activity revolved around the difference between parallel and series connections in circuits- figuring out how to get a buzzer and an LED to work at the same time in the small circuit. It took the students a second to figure out how to connect elements in parallel, but soon the room was filled with the high pitched buzz from the speakers signaling success. Tonight, we will finish developing our lesson plan for the math lesson tomorrow and then we will head to the school in the morning.

Catch you next time!

–Lucinda, Becky, and Tristan

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Wiki Moja – The Tanzania Tree Huggers Get to Moshi

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Hujambo from Tanzania! This week, the Tanzania Tree Huggers got to Tanzania and spent the week in Moshi.  After getting off of our plane at about 9:30 PM Wednesday night, Ewald Tesha from Asante Africa picked us up and brought us to stay at Snowview Hotel in Boma N’gombe for one night before we continued onward to Moshi.  We got up the next morning and after having a delicious first meal in Tanzania, we headed to tour the two schools we would be working with later on in the trip – Orkolili and Nkwamakuu.  First up, we stopped at Orkolili where Mama M’cha gave us a tour of their facilities.  They are a secondary school that offers vocational programs such as welding and masonry to help prepare their students for the workforce.  We then headed over to Nkwamakuu where we had chai (morning tea and snacks such as fresh fruit) with the headmaster before getting a tour of their school.  Both schools were not in session so we did not get a chance to meet more than just a few students at each school.

After finishing up at the school, we drove over to Moshi to get situated at the hostel we would be staying at for the next week, Old Moshi Hostel.  We got to meet Eva, our wonderful host who would be helping us organize projects, excursions, and showing us the city.  She is the best! After settling in to our room a bit, we went to visit Msamaria Children’s Home.  Having not heard anything from Amani’s Children’s Home (one of the sites past teams had worked with), we were exploring new options for future teams.  Msamaria Children’s Home was home to about 80 children who come from the streets, are orphans, or are from destructive homes who haven’t been able to be re-united with their extended families.  The kids were mostly around 7-12 years old and were excited to dance with us or use Madi’s hand sanitizer.  We identified a possible future project for teams to do as preparing some lessons on things such as sanitation to teach the students, a need that was expressed by the man who runs Msamaria.

The next day, Eva organized for us to head over to the Kiviwama Conservation Center to work on their tree planting project.  It was a beautiful slice of the rainforest just seconds from the city center of Moshi that had a lovely river cutting through it.  This project involved us being given a huge pile of native seeds and planting them in soil to start growing.  Another future project for teams would be to take part in their weekly tree transport and planting at schools around Moshi as an attempt to create natural shade using local plants.  It was a really cool project that we wished that we could work on more, but we lacked the necessary funds and time.  After planting all of our seeds and getting an overview of the different trees and plants that they raise there, we headed back to Msamaria’s to take part in a birthday party being thrown there for one of our fellow hostel-mates.  We all danced with the kids to fun renditions of “Happy Birthday” that we had never heard before, had a lunch of chicken and potatoes, and a celebratory chocolate cake.  It was so fun seeing all of the kids having a such a great time!

We were off the next two days since it was the weekend and we got to enjoy a few excursions! All three of us went with the hostel to the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro and hiked the 8 km up to Mandara Hut and then headed back.  It was incredible getting to experience such a iconic part of Tanzania.  The next day, Emily joined the hostel in a trip to hot springs where she got to see lots of monkeys and fish that nibble on your toes.

On Monday, we met up with our professor Mary Raber to discuss our time here so far and our upcoming plans for the next few weeks.  After hanging out for a bit, we went to lunch with Tesha and Eva at a local restaurant where we all tried some different Tanzanian dishes such as chips mayai (omelette with french fries) and maandazi (fried donuts).

We dropped Mary at her hotel and then headed over to check out our final site here in Moshi, the Children of Destiny Foundation children’s home.  It was conveniently located just two streets away from Old Moshi Hostel and it consisted of an orphanage that took care of about 20 kids that went to Kenya for boarding school much of the year and also a daycare for local children.  The orphanage had been running for about 12 years with the same group of kids growing up there as a family.  The children attended boarding school in Kenya through sponsorships by people around the world because they were able to get better educations that would prepare them to go to college or enter the workforce for about half the price ($720 USD) of what it would cost to get the same type of education in Tanzania.  The first of the kids to go off to college was Gideon who we had gotten to know at our hostel.  The day we had arrived had been a tumultuous one, there had been a complaint about their sewage leaking so they had received fines and due to a lack of communication from some of their sponsors, the kids had missed the first week of school because they lacked the funds to attend.  Spirits were overall down but Margaret, the woman who had lead the operation since the beginning, was optimistic that things would turn around as she explained some of their plans to work towards being less reliant on donations by opening a store and selling crops such as coriander, lettuce, and kale from their garden.  The daycare had been created in order to help generate more money to fund the orphanage and it currently has about 15-20 kids in it, many being away during our visit because school was still out for the season so some of the parents that are teachers at the nearby school were around.

We discussed the ways in which we could work with them and it was established that we could be the most helpful by helping update their website so that it had current information in order to make it easier for potential sponsors to get involved.  It was agreed between us and Margaret that the site was the most beneficial help we could give during our short time with them.  In our extra time, we would help out around the preschool doing things like teaching lessons or helping with feeding them.

When we went back to Margaret’s the next day, we heard the exciting news.  The students were going back to school! The Spaniards that had been staying at our hostel had given enough money to get them back into school in Kenya and all of the kids looked overjoyed.  With most of the focus being needed on getting the kids ready to head out, we helped out in the daycare until lunch.  For lunch, we tried out IndoItaliano, a great restaurant in downtown Moshi that lots of tourists visit for their great Indian and Italian food.  Emily and Madi tried tawa chicken and butter naan while Sam and Eva had margherita pizza.  We then headed to check out some of the stores and pick up some souvenirs.

The other project that we have been working on was updating Old Moshi Hostel’s website.  When Madi mentioned that she was going to be working on Margaret’s site, Eva asked if we could help her on her website too as it was out of date and in need of new pictures.  Wednesday morning while Sam and Emily headed back to Margaret’s, Madi worked with Eva to figure out what should be changed on the website.  Overall, it gave off a better impression of what the values and goals of the hostel were and the different projects that could be done by visitors.  In the future, teams could check back up with Eva and see if there is anything else she needs changed on the website.

Overall, it was a great start to our time in Tanzania! We are looking forward to everything that wiki mbili brings!

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Goats Can Fly!

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Agoo!

Did you know goats can fly? The Ghana Goats did just that! We flew out on June 26th and landed midday on the 27th.After spending the past few weeks finishing up our travel prep and our language/culture classes, dealing with missing passports, and getting some last-minute planning done, we finally left!

The most stressful thing we encountered before we left was trying to get our passports back from the Embassy of Ghana. We got a call about 3 weeks ago saying that they can’t be released to us because the return postage sent was incorrect. After several calls and emails and a ton of worrying, we got them back on Tuesday, June 18th. That’s a little too close to departure for comfort, but at least we have visas and passports!

Waiting at DTW to board for JFK! Couldn’t have done it without our passports. Shout out to Paige in the PHC for getting our visas sorted out for us!

We’ve also been busy doing some fundraising, and thank you to those who helped us out by donating to our projects on Superior ideas! We couldn’t do our work without you, so thank you again! Our project page can be found here (https://www.superiorideas.org/projects/ghana-2019)

A picture of us looking *professional* for our Superior Ideas page

Packing has also been a bit of an adventure! We have 2 suitcases dedicated for project work, and we’ve been prepping the materials for our projects, especially the Women’s Health project. Lucinda and her mom prepared enough fabric to make 147 sanitary pads in our Women’s Health workshops. It was entertaining to try to get all of those bags around the airport or to the hotel once we landed, and we at one point filled an entire elevator with our bags, but it was worth it to finally be in Ghana and ready to go!

A stack of fabric that can be used to make 147 reusable Sani-Pads

Once we got to the airport, we had quite an adventure navigating the check-in process, but we all made it through with time to spare for our first flight. We ended up landing in JFK a bit late, but, luckily, we had landed at the correct terminal. Getting on the plane itself was also entertaining, and a bit frustrating, when they ran out of carry-on bag space and started trying to send people back out of the plane to check their bags instead. This ultimately led to a back-up and a thirty minute delay to the start of our flight. Once we were up in the air, it was smooth sailing and we even got to see some beautiful views from the windows.

Our view as we were landing at JFK on Wed., June 26th

Landing in Ghana was fairly uneventful. We met Andrew, our advisor, outside the airport and took a shuttle over to our hotel. Andrew showed us around the nearby mall and the team picked up some fun snacks to hold us through until we could go out for dinner as well as exchanged some money. Our further plans for the few hours we are spending in Accra include some exploring and getting up early to catch a bus to Kumasi. We all feel that it is truly unbelievable that we are finally here and can’t wait to really start on projects in the communities. It’s hard to believe that all of our hard work and planning has paid off.

Thanks for everyone’s support, and stay tuned for our next update!

-Lucinda, Tristan, and Becky

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Meet the Peru Team!

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A note from Lexi:

It’s crazy to think that we are leaving for Peru in a little more than 2 weeks! We will be arriving in Lima, Peru late on Monday, June 24th. I’m so excited to get the feel of the city and make some new friends abroad. I am also ready to be motivated and motivate others on making a change in my and their community. Many people have this stereotype that other countries need our help (and yes maybe some do), but we kind of force our help on others and we think that we know best, especially when we just give other people things without educating them on how they can do it themselves. The thing I hope to accomplish is to encourage and motivate at least one Peruvian to make a change in their community. Keep reading to learn about me and Nic before we go on this grand adventure!

 

Lexi is a 4th year studying Mechanical Engineering at Michigan Tech. She studied abroad in Valencia, Spain in the Fall of 2018. As a new University Innovation Fellow, she is focused on creating a zero-waste culture on Michigan Tech’s campus. She is also involved in Pavlis Honors College where she is in the Global Leadership Pathway, and she is a Pavlis Ambassador. Lexi is beyond excited to be on the Pavlis Pilot Team for the Lima, Peru Site during Summer 2019. Stepping out of her comfort zone and gardening are among some of Lexi’s interests.

 

 

Nic is a fourth-year Biological Sciences Pre-Health major going for a minor in Psychology at Michigan Technological University. Nic moved around a lot throughout elementary school but ended up finding a home in Lake Linden, Michigan about twenty minutes away from Michigan Technological University. He is apart of Pavlis Honors College along with Health Occupations Students of America and Mont Ripley Ski Patrol. In his spare time, Nic likes to spend to be outside doing things like run, snowboard, skateboard, swim, and bike.

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Team Tanzania 2019

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Meet the Tanzania 2019 Team

 

Samantha Dertinger – scdertin@mtu.edu

Samantha is a third year Biomedical Engineering Student at Michigan Technological University. She is from Harrison Township Michigan, which is approximately 30 minutes north of Detroit, with her parents and 6 younger siblings. She participates in the Pavlis Honors College, Mind Trekkers, and the Michigan Tech Open Sustainability Technology Research group. In her free time, Samantha enjoys playing piano, video games, and spending time with her friends.

Emily Rutledge – ecrutled@mtu.edu

Emily is a third year Environmental Engineering major at Michigan Technological University. Emily grew up in Holland, Michigan with her mom, dad, and two dogs. At Michigan Tech Emily is involved with the Ski and Snowboard club as a member of the executive board, is in the Pavlis Honors College, is a member of the Green Campus Enterprise, and volunteers with the YWLP mentoring program. Emily enjoys volunteering and is passionate about sustainability. In her free time Emily enjoys downhill skiing, running, hiking, camping, backpacking and spending time with friends and family.

Madi Vachon – mtparis@mtu.edu

Madi is a fourth year English major at Michigan Technological University.  She is from Brighton, MI and grew up with her five siblings, her dog (Wookie), and hedgehog (Humphrey).  She is involved in Pavlis Honors College as a peer mentor and ambassador. In her free time, she works as a food blogger and an entrepreneur at mildlymeandering.com and snacksandsips.com, spending most weekends developing recipes.  Additionally, she loves to travel around the globe and try different foods.

About the Trip

Departure Date:

Three weeks from today (6/4/2019), Team Tanzania 2019 departs for Mount Kilimanjaro.

Projects:

Each member leads their own projects including updating a handwashing station at Nkwamakuu Primary School, STEM activities at the primary school and Orkalili High School, and English education activities at the same schools. Proper sanitation is necessary in all schools in order for the schools to make long lasting impacts on the children it serves. As sanitation continues to improve in schools, it allows to children to be more present in school, missing less from preventable illnesses and other health reasons that may otherwise force them to stay home. This with sustainable growth in the STEM field of education will help the students prepare themselves for upcoming exams and higher levels of education. In turn, with high levels of education in the community, the standards of living will improve and the students will be able to give back to their own communities, using their education.  English education will help the students prepare for the English-based high schools that many will attend and to help them prepare to use English in the work force through hands-on, interactive activities that will help them learn the language.

About the Global Leadership Pathway:

The Global Leadership Pathway in the Pavlis Honor College, at Michigan Tech, inspires and prepares students to become leaders who challenge themselves, work effectively on diverse teams, and achieve their goals through life-changing courses, projects, mentorships, and international experiences. The highlight of the Global Leadership Pathway is a 5-week international experience from June 25th through July 31st, and this year we will be heading to Tanzania. While there we must use the skills we have developed to successfully complete meaningful projects that will have a positive effect on the Tanzania community. For our trip, we have three projects, which are outlined below.   We will be working on these at an elementary and high school in Boma N’Gombe and with Amani’s Children’s Home in Moshi.

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On the Go with the Ghana Goats!

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Agoo! (Hello!) We are landing in Ghana on June 27th and will be spending 2 weeks in Sunyani, 1 week in Babianeha, and spending the rest of our time split between Kumasi, Accra, and other locations as well as project planning as a group. Here are some short introductions for our team members! And if you’re wondering why we’re the Ghana goats, there are a lot of goats in Ghana.

 

Meet the Team

Lucinda Hall – lucindah@mtu.edu

Hi, my name is Lucinda, and I am a senior biochemistry and molecular biology student. Living in a small town in Michigan has caused me to expand my horizons in every way that I can find, and growing up in Girl Scouts helped me travel the world, appreciate volunteering, and empowered me to pursue a STEM career. It seemed like the Global Leadership pathway of  Michigan Tech’s Pavlis Honors College was a perfect fit for me. I currently work in a developmental biology research lab using fruit flies to study cancer pathways, and upon graduation, I will go for my Ph.D. studying treatments for cancer using our body’s own immune system. I also work as a Resident Assistant providing guidance and support to students living in Michigan Tech’s residence halls. In my free time, I enjoy skiing and playing in the Huskies Pep Band at Michigan Tech.

 

Becky Daniels – rsdaniel@mtu.edu

Hello, my name is Becky! I am a senior biomedical engineering student with minors in Leadership and Spanish and I am from Mukwonago, WI. Ever since joining robotics in High School, I developed a passion for engineering and can’t wait to apply all that I have learned during my time at Tech to real-life situations in Ghana and wherever else life may lead me. One of my biggest values and goals is to help people all across the world. I joined the Pavlis Honors College- Global Leadership to explore what it truly means to help people and learn how to be a better engineer, leader, and person in the process (while getting to travel along the way). After graduation, I would love to get into the medical device industry and start making an impact in an industry that touches so many lives and combines my passion for engineering and helping others. When I am not working as a Physics Learning Center Coach, Archives Assistant, or Learning Facilitator, you can find me playing some music on my ukulele or reading a good book.

 

Tristan Hunt – tahunt@mtu.edu 

Hey, my name is Tristan Hunt and I am a fourth-year Mechanical Engineering student majoring in Global Leadership here at Michigan Technical University. I moved here from Kalamazoo, Michigan where I lived for high school and one year of middle school. Before then I had attended schools overseas when my father was in the military. I decided to join the Pavlis Honors Colleges Global Leadership Program after my freshman college year because I wanted to get more emphasis on leadership- something that has always been important to me. I hope to work with my cohort to introduce STEM education to some of the local schools and I am also planning to add some grade school level literature to the community center in Babianeha. I’m excited to get to gain this experience of going abroad as well as spending time with my cohort.

 

Team Goals and Projects

On this trip, our goal is to not only continue a legacy of projects started almost 10 years ago, but also continue to expand our partnerships in communities across Ghana. The three main projects we are pursuing as a team this summer focus on STEM education, Women’s Health, and collaborating with the Community Center in Babianeha. While the entire team will be involved in the planning and execution of these projects, one team member will take the role of project lead for one project. Outside of these three main projects, the team also hopes to reach out to organizations at the University of Energy and Natural Resources so establish partnerships and programs with an even broader scope and impact across Ghana.

 

STEM Education – Becky’s Project

The goal of the STEM Education project in both Sunyani and Babianeha is to collaborate with the teachers at the school to develop and implement innovative methods of teaching STEM to students. The team contacts the schools prior to travel in order to understand the curriculum the cohort will be assisting with and work with the teachers to develop a teaching plan between the travelers in the cohort. By not only teaching STEM to students but also establishing a partnership with the teachers, the students receive lesson plans that are engaging and include multiple viewpoints across cultures.

Women’s Health – Lucinda’s Project

The goal of the women’s health project is to educate young women about menstruation and host workshops to teach them how to make reusable sanitary pads. Young women in rural areas in Ghana often have to forgo attending school while they are on their period, and missing one week of school per month can be detrimental to their education. These workshops give these young women the resources to obtain an uninterrupted education and empower them with knowledge about their bodies. These workshops will take place in Babianeha and Sunyani.

Community Center – Tristan’s Project

This project will be located in the town of Babianeha at its community center where there have already been several other projects led by Pavlis cohorts. This year, Emmanuel has asked the team to supply an assortment of books for the students in the area to utilize. Currently, there are books for an elementary age group as well as a high school and college level age group but nothing for middle school students to read. Our plan is to acquire plenty of literature regarding STEM as well as potentially expanding the collection to include leisure books.

Travel Locations and Dates  

Take a look at our schedule and the map to get an idea of what we’ll be doing where and when!

Project Schedule

 

Map of Ghana – the pin shows Babianeha

We’ll be posting accounts of each week in-country, so stay tuned to catch our adventures!

-Lucinda, Becky, and Tristan

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Last Days in Ghana

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By: Lianne Novak

Thank you for being patient this week while I wrote the week 5 post for our team blog!   We left Accra on Sunday (August 5), and while the rest of the group spends a few weeks vacationing in Europe, I’ve been home unpacking, and fighting a “bug” that I picked up somewhere along the way.  Anyway, on Monday we headed back to the dressmaker to pick up the dresses that we left with Nana.  They all had longer zippers now, and fit really well when we got them home and tried them on.

 

Emmanuel came by that evening to say his farewells, and to tell us that his driver would pick us up the next morning at 5am to bring us to Cape Coast.  There is no direct bus to Cape Coast, and transferring buses can be a pain since they do not all have a set schedule (some of them leave as they fill).  We got a group photo with him (below), along with some individual photos.  We chatted for about ten minutes, and loaded the items that he stores for Pavlis groups into his car, too, before he drove off.  An inventory of these items was taken so that we can give accurate information to next year’s Ghana group about what’s left for them.  We left some cooking supplies including silverware, a hot plate, rice cooker, pan(s) and some dishes, along with 4 standing fans.  These were left for us by last year’s group, and Nana and Emmanuel are nice enough to store them in their house for the groups each year.

 

We finished up our packing that night and went to bed for a relatively long nap before our alarms started going off at 4am.  We finished stuffing stuff into our suitcases (ie toothbrushes and PJs), picked up our bags, said our goodbyes to the hostel room, and headed out to meet the driver.  The drive to Cape Coast wasn’t very long (about 5 hours), but it was quite bumpy.  We made it to Cape Coast and finished checking in at the first hotel by 10:30am (Orange Beach Resort).  We still had most of the day to explore the area and see what was around Cape Coast.  We headed out going towards the Cape Coast Castle (though from my understanding, it’s being renamed the Cape Coast Dungeon, which might be a more accurate name).  Being a tourist town, and the Dungeon a tourist attraction, there are plenty of people trying to get you to either buy their paintings and artwork, as well as children who want you to sponsor them in school.  Our understanding from Nana is that school in free in Ghana, and the children all carried around copies of the same letter with their name filled in, so we were suspected that this money was not really for school.

 

We weren’t warned about this, so we stopped and looked around at the paintings at the various stands, and had to resist purchasing all the paintings.  I know that I spent more than I meant to at one of the shops, and had to be very conscious after that outing that this was a tourist destination, and just like any other major tourist area, there would be more than enough souvenirs around, and to resist the temptation to buy every single souvenir you see and like!  And, like any other tourist area in the world, there are lots of people trying to make money from the tourists.  This was also where a lot of Ghanaians want to be your friend.  They want to know your name, and then want to know your number, or address.  If you don’t want to give out your information, you have to stand your ground, make up a story if you have to (can’t get/make international calls), and eventually they will go away.  You can also be more direct, and flat out say “no,” but I personally felt that they were harmless and 10-15 minutes later they’d go away if your “polite lie” was convincing enough.

 

We spent a lot of time on the beach relaxing each day, though sitting on the beach and reading wasn’t an option if you were looking for a nice peaceful experience.  Kids would come along asking you to sponsor them, or native Ghanaians would come asking you to be their friends.  It was a bit easier to relax on the beach at our second hotel (Oasis Beach Resort).  The group went out with Evans (staff at Orange Beach, not the same Evans from Babianeha), and another visitor from Norway the first night to the Dungeon.  There was a lot of drumming that we could hear from the lounge area and even our room, and so we headed to the Dungeon (almost next door).  It was the 20th anniversary of the emancipation of the Door of Return event.

 

The Dungeon has a Door of No Return, which is the door that the slaves walked out of on their way to the ships that they were shipped out on.  In 1998 the Door of No Return got a sign on the other side that reads “Door of Return.”  At this ceremony, in ‘98 the bodies of two of the former slaves who had walked through the Door of No Return, returned home through the Door of Return.  We stayed for most of the documentary (I think) before we headed home around 10pm.   We headed back the next day for the official tour and to see the museum.

 

The museum was really interesting; they had diagrams and illustrations of the ships and what the slaves had to endure during their time at the Dungeon.  There were also photos of some famous African-Americans who are Heroes of Diaspora including Duke Ellington, Harriet Tubman, Fredrick Douglass, and Stevie Wonder, and Martin Luther King Jr.  The tour itself was very eye opening.  We were shown the various rooms where slaves were kept for months at a time.  These rooms had no windows, usually 1-3 small holes (maybe the size of a window) at the top of one wall that had to be at least two stories high to let light and air in (for 250 men), and there were no bathrooms or latrines.  We were also shown the rooms for the women and children over age 13, as well as the Door of No Return.  It was hard to think about how those people had suffered.

 

The next day (Thursday), we moved to the hotel next door (Oasis Beach).  We took a trip to the ATM, and also gave Josh and Charles an opportunity to look at some of the shops for souvenirs.  We spent a lot of the day relaxing on the beach, writing in journals and reading.  We took a trip to Kakum National Park on Friday to go on a canopy walk, which had been highly recommended by the previous group.  The canopy walk itself was really fun, and the incline of the hill wasn’t bad, but the stones were not evenly laid, and you had to pay very close attention to your footing to make sure you didn’t slip and trip!  Charles took a group selfie (below), and Sonja captured a photo of Lianne and herself on the 2nd or 3rd suspension bridge.  We enjoyed the rest of the day relaxing and packing up to head to Accra on Saturday morning.

 

We didn’t realize that you had to pre-purchase tickets for the bus to Accra from Cape Coast, so we ended up taking a mini-bus (12 passenger van) to the outskirts of Accra where we picked up a taxi to take us to the Airport View Hotel.  We spent most of Saturday relaxing at the hotel before our travel, and reshuffling some luggage.  Sunday we checked out, and spent time in a lounge area working on our final project report before departing for the airport and our journeys to Europe and the States.

 

Sonja and Lianne on one of the suspension bridges at the canopy walk.

 

Group selfi on the way up to the canopy walk (PC: Charles)
Group selfi on the way up to the canopy walk (PC: Charles)
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