Going wherever my restlessness takes me…

I received an email from Thompson a couple of days ago. It was a great email that has really inspired me and motivates me to keep going until I achieve my goal, our goal of building and completing the High Vision International School in the community of Gwenia, Ghana.

When I first began talks with Thompson about helping him with the school, I thought to myself I want to make sure that the effort to see this school succeed is not done in vain. I want those in their community to see this as an opportunity, not a handout, and to bring our efforts together into the building of the school. The idea that came to mind was to have them hold a fundraiser for the school, in conjunction with fundraisers we have in Canada. Through their event, those of us here in Canada could see that our efforts are contributing to a greater goal, with two communities, thousands of miles apart, working towards something special.

Today I am happy to report that the community has held their fundraising event. Here is an excerpt from Thompson’s email to me, describing the event:

Hello Kabuga,

I hope this mail finds you well. We are also doing well in Ghana here, the rains have subsided a little bit and farmers who sow their groundnuts early have started harvesting.

The school too is in session and everything is going on well as expected.

Fortunately, our long awaited fundraising exercise towards the development of the school was able to take place last Saturday 18th September 2010. Because of lack of space in my house, it was hosted at the Gwenia Junior High School. The attendance was quiet impressive and the District Director of Education, Kassena/Nankana West was in attendance.

…At the end we were able to realize a cash amount of three hundred Ghana cedis (GHc300.00) and the Education Director promises to assist the school with furniture and some textbooks.

It was a successful event.

This is such a great accomplishment! If you consider this area, a person may only make 2 cedis per day to harvest a crop. Considering that the entire community is made up mainly of farmers, their salaries are very low. So, I would like to extend my congratulations to the Gwenia community for making this happen!

I am happy for the joint effort that both of our communities are making for the good of the children of Gwenia. Thank you to everyone that has helped so far. Know that you are part of something greater than you may ever know!

Stay tuned for the next event, coming soon!!

Best,
Nadia

Hello everyone!

It’s been 3 months since the “Raise the Roof” event at the El Mocambo in April. I heard back from so many people that they had a lot of fun at the event, and really enjoyed the comedy acts, the music, and the prizes! It was a great night and really showed me the community that I have around me, and the power of what people can do when they come together around a good thing. Thank you again to everyone who came out, and to those of you that couldn’t make it out but still donated.

We raised $4020.07 in total. A part of the reason why some of you donated may be for any number of reasons – you care about the school, and the children, you like the fact that you can see where your money is going, or you’re one of my friends and wanted to support me Whatever the reason, I aim to stay to true to what I said – and that I will update you all on what is happening with the school and what is happening with your money.

Since the event, I have been in constant contact with Thompson Apempale.  Thompson is the man who is currently running the school out of his house. There was a lot of communication back and forth between us, to get the quote for the school update, to be sure that things were still relevant now, since the quote I was given was from December 2009 (when I was there.)

Throughout this time I asked for a lot of help from Reynaldo, a volunteer with Engineers Without Borders who is currently in a community very close to the school. He found some more quotes for me, from engineers, contractors, one of my former co-workers, Maggie of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. Thank you so much Reynaldo for all of your help! He is also the one who has sent me pictures of the school so far.

So, through this contact and back and forth communication, we updated the quote for the school project plan and budget, to build the six-room school. I’ve also been in touch with staff from the Ghana Education Service – ie the ministry of education in Ghana,  to ensure approval and support for the building of the school.

So finally, after all of this, in mid-June, I sent three installments of the money we raised – enough to cover the digging and building of the foundation. After much back and forth, the total cost of the foundation came to around $3500.

When Thompson received the final installment, I heard from him, and his gratitude is true and sincere:

Madam Kabuga,

I lost words to say thank you. I have received the last transfers and most grateful to you. I sent a mail on Saturday informing you that we were able to get things started. Reynaldo and some of the committee members were there to witness the mapping out of the structure and all were happy it and you. The teachers, community members and me and my family wish to express our profound gratitude to you for getting this great thing to happen in the community. We also wish to express same to Reynaldo who was with the team with the hot sun throughout the exercise.

I therefore wish to appeal to you to send our compliment to Reynaldo for leaving his heavy schedule on that Saturday for the work to start.
I shall send you receipts and the other expenditure that we would incurred to you soon.

Once again thank you elephantly.

I want to extend his thank you to all of you, because literally and truly, without you, this would not have happened.

On July 5th, I received an email from Thompson telling me that the foundation has been completed:

Hi Kabuga, I hope you are well…I am pleased to inform you that we were able to complete the foundation. Everything went on well…I had a photographer who took pictures of all the rest of the work and when they are ready I shall scan them for your attention.

(By the way, Kabuga is my local name in Ghana.)

Thompson’s latest email to me was an update on the community’s own efforts to fundraise for the school:

Hello Kabuga,

I hope this mail finds you well. I am pleased to inform you that the construction committee members and myself were able to meet some opinion members of the community to discuss the possibility of having the fundraising ceremony but we were told that people are still sowing their crops for that matter we should push to the early weeks of September where everybody would be a little free.

The second piece of good news is that the Ghana Education Service is writing the approval letter for you to continue with the construction…I hope you are also going on with your activities well.

Have a joyful working week.

I have uploaded some of the photos to Flickr and have also uploaded them to facebook.

THANK YOU EVERYONE!! I am very happy with the project so far, and I hope you are too. Please let me know your thoughts, as you are just as much a part of this Great Thing as I am! Any ideas you have for another event to raise more funds for the next phase of building the school are welcome – let’s see how great this can be!

Best,
Nadia

Time is a-tickin’ and the fundraiser is only 2 weeks away! So yesterday, I decided to take a floater, & get out there to find stores that would donate prizes for the raffle we’ll be having at the event. My first thought was “Ok. I’ll go to the Eaton’s Centre.” So off I go. After hanging out with Ryan and eating some horrible Chinese food, I set off into the mall, with letters and posters in hand, ready to take on the world. After tired feet and my hopes being thrown up, down, and around after every store, here’s how it all went down:

I had to call head office for:

H&M, Athletes World, Roots, Banana Republic, Swatch, Apple (so busy at 3pm! There were at least 20 apple employees and tons of customers…how is this even possible?), Indigo (the song “Over the Rainbow” was playing on the radio and I got all teary-eyed thinking about the kids, and the school and all the people that are supporting me…awww ), Jacob (I met Hanna, who works at Jacob, and she was very interested in the fundraiser! Her husband is also a fundraiser, so I gave her a letter and a poster and invited her out! I hope she comes, she was great!!)

Hopefuls:

Bath & Body Works (did you know they are owned by La Senza?!), Lush (gotta call “Geoff” Saturday), Hallmark – Anne the manager was very nice! She faxed my letter off to head office.

Stores with their own budgets, but who didn’t have any left to give for this month:

Lululemon, Best Buy

Stores who only give to charities that their employees support:

Godiva (Patrick, the Assistant Manager, has his birthday on the same day as the fundraiser! Maybe he’ll look at this blog and ask Godiva to support?!), GAP

So, that’s 14 stores, and no bites. How demoralizing!! So I decide to go to Queen and Bathurst to a store that I remember passing by called Simply Roots – they sell African Products. So I decided to walk in, introduce myself, and the fundraiser. I ended up meeting the owner, Ruth who is a really wonderful lady! She was very interested when I mentioned Ghana, and I found out why. She sells her own beauty products with shea butter in them, and she sources the shea nuts from Ghana. So she was just there in November, and is going back again in about 2 weeks, for 1 year! She even said that she would visit the school! It’s really quite exciting!!

We talked about the kids in Ghana and how wonderful they really are – although she can’t make the fundraiser (she flies out on the 10th,) she is going to provide a gift basket for the raffle!

I then continued west on Queen until I hit Ten Thousand Villages. There I bought some Divine chocolate – 4 bars to be exact (I’m happily addicted!) – dark, milk, hazelnut & coffee. When we were in Ghana, we visited the Cocoa farmers that actual farm the cocoa that this fair trade chocolate is made from! Makes it even more delicious!

After that, I went to a random coffee shop called Niche Coffee. I bought a white hot chocolate and delicious Ginger cookie, and then pitched my fundraiser. The manager of the store, Amanda, was completely willing to help and offered a basket of coffee and goods for the raffle. Wonderful eh?

Now I realize that it’s the stores in our communities that are willing to help for a cause – more so than those big corporations. It’s interesting because in Ghana, you can easily see the community focus, and get that sense of the strength of the community around you. I never really thought about my community, but through this experience, I’m only now starting to discover my own community.

Here is another exert from a subsequent email from Thompson:

Thanks very much for your response to my mail.  I am satisfied with all the points raised and to say that we the Gwenia Community are with you in sprit in whatever you are doing and we hope that all your dreams will become a reality. I am also gald to add that even with my refusal from gathering the stones, the community also took their own decision to continue with the exercise so to me we should not worried much about that but only pray that we would succeed in our dreams. There was one point I forgot to inform you.  The name of the school has been changed from High Vision Academy to Nadia High Vision International School.  That was one of the resolutions taking at the meeting which I think worth mentioning to you. The other thing that was discussed was that if things happened the way we are fighting for, then the first structure of the school (the block) should be named after your community, which to me was also laudable.

Now I know that I do have a community, even in this big city of ours. You just have to reach out and connect to people.