Elizabeth and I had an easy trip to Accra, sailed through the airport and baggage with no hitches at all, then were met by Dr. Michael Williams of the Aya Centre, who is also a good friend and Yo Ghana! board member.  We settled in with a very hospitable host family in East Legon and then purchased modems and a cell phone at the mall and got caught up with correspondence.

Monday it was time to start working.  A twenty-five minute walk brought us to the Aya Centre and Palm Institute.  There we joined Miss Lucy Dawu, who is our Ghana coordinator, and Dr. Richard White, who teaches development at Portland State, and were reunited with Mr. Frank, one of the most careful and most capable taxi drivers in Ghana.  Frank drove us to Nima, where Richard brainstormed with Kofi and Kate Anane, about how their very impressive school, Anani Memorial International School, might find additional ways of developing the school, which serves many children from poorer families.

Then we had a late lunch with Mr. Kankam Mensah Felix, our very, very industrious and organized coordinator at L & A Academy, and his friend, Mr. Richard.

Reflection: Dr. White mentioned that across the developing world "slums" (a word that in Ghana lacks many of the negative connotations it has in the U.S.) are often places of great creativity and accomplishment.  Nima, the slum in which Anani School is located, draws people from all over West Africa looking for a better life.  Many of them succeed and then leave Nima.  So, in broad terms, people in development see Nima as a place between two other places: the many (often rural) parts of West Africa where conditions are often desperate enough for people to move many miles to Nima, and the places in Ghana and beyond that the people who are successful in Nima then migrate to.  So Nima is a very dynamic place, with many people coming and going, and institutions like Anani Memorial International School are crucial to the many success stories that Nima generates.  But the successes do not come easily, and there is a nearly infinite supply of people in West Africa eager to get to places like Nima where, it seems, the chances for success are better.

David

I had coffee a couple of days ago with a friend I hadn't seen in some years, when we served on the board of a little nonprofit together.  I had always appreciated his mix of warmth and candor, a characteristic that had not abated with age.  So after asking me several searching questions about Yo Ghana! he said something like this: "David, people from Ghana will be thinking, even if they don't say it: "What are you getting from this?"

It is a very fair question.  Many "philanthropists" make a living from their work, sometimes a very good living.  It also looks good on a resume or c.v., can be used indirectly to build wealth.  Most commonly, I think, those of us who do volunteer work with people considered vulnerable due to poverty or trauma or what have you are trying to look better to ourselves and others.  Teju Cole calls this "The White Savior Industrial Complex."  Helping Africans is about "having a big emotional experience that validates privilege."  Being a person born into privilege with more than a little bit of ambition and insecurity, I must admit that a desire to build myself up has had more than a little to do with my volunteer work with battered women, vulnerable children, racial reconciliation, and Kenya and Ghana.

But I also learned slowly, over the years, that the biggest pay-off in all of these activities was the relationships that they brought.  It may seem odd, but the happiest people I know are those who see their lives as a vessel to be joyfully emptied on behalf of others.  With Yo Ghana! I get to work with dozens of such people: the best of the best teachers, people who already have too much to do yet take on more; the principals and headmasters and headmistresses who face incredible problems with good humor and boundless energy; volunteers and advisers who are already stretched thin but sacrifice to support us with gifts of time and money.  And people who are vulnerable economically are often very rich and generous in other respects.  The month I spend in Ghana every year is a month suffused with warmth and inspiration I have found nowhere else.  Our slogan, "exchanges for transformation," certainly applies for and to me.

Religion tell us that service is good for the soul.  Evolution tell us that we are hard-wired to care for each other, that our survival has always been a collective endeavor.  And experience tells me that happiness comes from finding people doing great things and joining them.

David

I never featured myself leading a nonprofit, and one of the many parts of the job that I find challenging is asking people for money.

Yo Ghana! faces the additional challenge of having a mission statement that doesn't lend itself to bumper stickers or sound bites.  We facilitate "transformative exchanges" between students in Ghana and the Pacific Northwest that emphasize partnership--friendships and understanding nurtured through the thoughtful exchange of letters.  This takes a great deal of time and care, gifts of hours not money.  That said, keeping the letters moving requires some money, and we also support some very worthy projects at our Ghana schools.  But the projects are more subtle than sexy.  We aren't claiming to "Save the Children" or "Feed the World."

Thoughtful development requires humility and caution, a deep respect for what people are already doing for themselves.  We are not in the business of feeding people or even building schools.  Rather, we provide partial scholarships to families who are donating their time to strengthen their schools, and if a school builds walls for new classrooms, we are interested in helping with the roof.

Aside from personal friends and family of board members and other volunteers, we have found that two types of people are likely to support us.  People who leave places where poverty is common are often bombarded by requests from family members and friends for support, so they quickly become adept at giving in a way that will inspire local initiative.  Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who have spent years immersed in places where social structures are strong and material resources modest also appreciate the power of judicious and collaborative giving.  You don't have to have grown up in a village where food and education could not be taken for granted or have been in the Peace Corps to get excited about donating to us.  But it helps if you think carefully about how to give in a way that will be likely to help people in the long run.

Like most of us, I don't like asking people for money.  I have overcome that reluctance by working with the rest of our board and volunteers to create an organization with virtually no overhead that funds projects that reward local initiative.  Our board donates about half of the money needed to link our thirty-some schools and two thousand students and provide some modest grants for our Ghana partners.  If you can help us with that other 50 percent, please click on the "Donate" button on our home or donate page, or e-mail us.

David