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Humjibre Schools Compete in District Football Tournament

If Ghana had a national past-time, it would undoubtedly be soccer, known internationally as ‘football.’ Schools throughout the Bibiani-Anwhiaso-Bekwai (BAB) District, public and private, suspended classes the last week of November, so that students could compete in the annual Athletics Gala, a weeklong sports contest featuring track events and a football tournament. Humjibre’s primary and junior high schools kicked off the week with track races from the 100 meter dash up to 5K run.

But the crowning event came on Thursday with the junior high football game that would decide which school advances to the District semifinals in Bekwai. Historically, Humjibre’s Anglican Junior High has dominated this event over the smaller Deeper Life and Muoho Junior High schools, with the Anglican boys’ team advancing all the way to the finals in Bibiani in 2005. GHEI staff joined the community at the Humjibre football field, a dusty expanse lacking the turf or markings of a proper field, to cheer on their favoured teams. With a first quarter goal, the Anglican boys’ team defeated Muoho 1-0, securing them a spot in the semis at Bekwai. Penalty shoot-outs decided the girls’ matches with Deeper Life defeating Muoho 4-3, after Muoho defeated Anglican 4-3.

Humjibre and the surrounding communities look forward to cheering these teams to victory at Bekwai later this month.

--Natalie Rich, GHEI Communications Director

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GHEI Celebrates World AIDS Day

GHEI Community Health Worker (CHW), Lydia Ampomaning, demonstrates how to use a condom to a group of giggling adolescents at GHEI’s World AIDS Day celebration. Over 200 people, including Humjibre’s Chief and Elders, gathered at Humjibre Community Centre for this year’s festivities, where a DJ kicked off the event at 6:30pm. By 7:30, the hall was packed. GHEI Program Manager Clement Donkor opened by explaining that stigmas and misconceptions still run rampant in Humjibre and around the world. He urged community members to avoid spreading the disease by using condoms and to fight the stigma which prevents so many from seeking testing and treatment. Following his comments, a series of short films were shown, ranging from a cartoon illustration of the AIDS virus attacking the body and a re-enactment showing a person getting tested for HIV.

Humjibre CHWs moved through the crowd demonstrating proper condom use in small groups and addressing audience questions. One high school student, Stephen, commented that the videos answered some of the questions he had about HIV/AIDS and how it is spread. Like many of the young people who attended, Stephen chose to remain on the outskirts of the crowd, but gradually migrated to the front when the CHWs began the condom demonstrations.

Select staff and CHWs managed two confidential condom distribution stations outside the event, allowing men and women to receive condoms in separate discreet locations. Over 800 condoms were distributed during the celebration, and all GHEI CHWs and Peer Educators received 26 condoms to distribute among people in the surrounding communities.

Humjibre’s Chief, Nana Kwadwo Twum II, closed the celebration by reminding people that HIV/AIDS remains both a global and a local problem. He urged people to protect themselves through abstinence and condom use. Thanking GHEI for its efforts to educate people and to promote HIV/AIDS awareness, he explained the importance of fighting diseases like HIV/AIDS in communities like Humjibre: “Reducing HIV leads to a healthier community, and a healthy community surely paves the way towards development.” Read more about how GHEI promotes HIV/AIDS prevention and sexual health in the Reproductive Health section of GHEI Programs page.


--Natalie Rich, GHEI Communications Director

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GHEI Welcomes New Health Program Coordinator

Amid candle light and a traditional Ghanaian meal of fried chicken and jollof rice, GHEI staff gathered to bid farewell to Christina Briglieb, GHEI’s outgoing Health Program Coordinator. The evening proved bittersweet as the Health Team and Humjibre Community Health Workers (CHWs) paid tribute to Christina and her service to GHEI. With a Master’s Degree in Public Health and more than 2 years of international experience, Christina arrived with a wealth of research skills and cross-cultural awareness. She collaborated closely with GHEI’s Malaria Program Manager, Mensah Gyapong, Humjibre’s CHW Manager, Agnes Obeng, and both the Humjibre and Surano CHWs on a myriad of projects including: planning and facilitating a household malaria education program in which 2000 bednets were hung in 400 households; organizing a system for monitoring and evaluating the malaria program; expanding upon GHEI’s school Hand-Washing Program; and forging partnerships with the Bibiani District Health Service. Her numerous contributions have benefited staff and community members alike.

Though Christina will surely be missed, GHEI eagerly welcomes Carly Edwards to the Health Team as the new Health Program Coordinator. A former Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco, Carly received her Master’s Degree in International Development and Social Change at Clark University and brings more than 3 years of development project experience from Morocco, Ghana, and South Africa. For the past month, Carly worked alongside Christina to develop a framework for her 13-month term, which will involve expanding GHEI’s malaria program to the neighboring village of Kojina, building on GHEI’s reproductive health program, and facilitating training for GHEI’s Health Team.

This week, Carly launched into her new position with a staff training on GPS Data Collection and GIS Mapping. Local staff will utilize these skills to map Kojina, a GHEI satellite community and the next target village for GHEI’s malaria education and bednet distribution program. Carly’s skills and experience will build on Christina’s accomplishments and ensure future success for GHEI’s Health Programs.

--Natalie Rich, GHEI Communications Director

GHEI holds community meeting to discuss research results

GHEI held a community meeting in the community center in early September. More than 110 people attended including the village chief, queen mother and elders.

The goal of the meeting was to relay why GHEI does research, the results of recent research and to allow the community and chief an opportunity to discuss the findings. Planning for the event included a series of meetings with the village chief to discuss research in general, recent research results and the strategy for the community meeting.

Diana Rickard, MD, GHEI’s Executive Director, informed the audience that GHEI performs research for two reasons: to gain information that helps the organization plan programs to improve the health and education of the community’s children or to improve current programs.

She then discussed results from the general survey performed in 2009.  Highlights included that half of the population is under age 18, half of households rely on unimproved water sources, half have electricity and half have latrines.  The chief implored the audience to improve household conditions by removing trash and installing household latrines.

The audience then learned that occupations are highly stratified by gender, one third of adults have had no formal education, 90% of adults have no education beyond middle school level and that males receive far more education than females.  The chief added that all children deserve the investment of education and females must be educated.  He also reinforced GHEI’s health programming in handwashing and malaria prevention after a discussion of the need for improved bednet usage and high rates of diarrhea.

Clement Donkor, GHEI’s Program Director, continued the presentation with a discussion of community priorities for children communicated during a 2010 qualitative study.  Of all age groups under age 18, the community prioritized children under age 5 years the most.  Education, opportunities, illness and health care topped the list of priorities.  The results of this work will help inform GHEI’s programming in the coming five years.

Jen Artibello, GHEI’s Education Program Coordinator, then showed the results of the national exam pass rates after Junior High School for all students and for girls and boys separately.  The pass rate for girls increased from 4% in 2001 to 98% in 2009.  The audience was amazed and excited to learn how far Humjibre’s youth had come in just a few years.

A local radio station covered the event and conducted a live interview with Clement Donkor.

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GHEI's Annual Leadership Retreat

GHEI held its annual retreat in Winneba this year with thirteen people in attendance. The first three days of the five-day retreat focused on discussion to develop GHEI’s five-year strategic plan. These discussions included refining our vision, reviewing GHEI’s history to launch a discussion of values, discussing baseline quantitative and qualitative research, establishing priority areas and approaches and drafting five-year plans by sector.

We also created a plan to improve our capacity building approach that will start with a comprehensive assessment by Jen Artibello, our Education Program Coordinator and Clement Donkor, GHEI’s Program Director. One component of in-service training will be on planning and monitoring programs and will be led by Jen Artibello through weekly sessions in January-March 2011.

In an effort to improve our focus on girls, we created a plan to increase the percentage of girls to 60% in our early childhood education, youth education and scholarship programs. We will also begin an annual award for the top female student in Senior High School. A new quarterly staff evaluation process was approved at retreat as well.

The completion of retreat was marked by an award ceremony for staff.

Training for health care providers at Bibiani District Hospital

GHEI hosted an American emergency medicine physician, Dr. Daniel Patenaude, for a training assessment visit in September. His goals were to better understand the health system and health care delivery in Bibiani District, GHEI’s role within the health system and its priorities. He also hoped to forge relationships with the district health leaders and to conduct training on topics related to emergency medicine. On all accounts, his visit was successful. It culminated in a half-day training on the initial evaluation of a trauma patient and on treating shoulder and hip dislocations.

A Note From Katrina

During Winter quarter of my junior year of college, I got the incredible opportunity to work with GHEI on the Sorano Malaria project. For twelve weeks the Sorano community health care workers and I conducted WHO surveys that evaluated the effectiveness of a bed net intervention one year later. Every day was a learning experience as I developed insights into Ghanaian culture and learned how this influences behaviors that affect health. A year and a half later, my friends still joke that any experience I have I can relate back to “this one time in Ghana...” After working on a project where I felt my time and efforts directly correlated with change, it was difficult returning to a classroom to simply learn about global problems rather build a tool set to help address these. To fuel my desire to make concrete changes I gave up the 20+ hours a week I was devoting to varsity swimming, took an internship at Dartmouth’s Dickey Center for International Understanding, and became the Community Development Officer for a two week winter break trip to Nicaragua.

From my experiences working with the CHWs in Sorano and from exposure to Rotary International’s passing Polio eradication campaign, I became intrigued by monitoring and evaluation of global health initiatives. After experiencing the cultural biases and miscommunication that can occur when conducting “Western” surveys in a “non-Western” culture, I was curious how these miscommunications could be prevented and also curious how large scale initiatives could gain the trust of participants living in rural communities. Next year I will be doing a post-bachelor fellowship with the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation where I will have the opportunity to work alongside some of the top researchers in the field of global health, build skills in quantitative and qualitative analysis, and jointly pursue a MPH from the University of Washington. My experiences in Sorano cemented my interest in global health and have since opened up numerous opportunities that have enabled me to pursue these interests. I want to thank everyone at GHEI for taking them time to share their lives and culture with me. My relationships with all of you are what have fueled my passion to pursue this line of work; I think of you all often!

--Katrina

The Rumors in this Town

By Isaac Akwabeng (GHEI Community Health Worker) - Humjibre, Ghana - The Humjibre community still needs help. I am talking about masons, carpenters, and electricians. Everyone in this town has said that GHEI is doing well. They have a library which is the best in the Western region. GHEI’s library has everything, but these workers want to study in this library but they do not have technical books. If GHEI can supply some technical books they will be very happy.

I went out into the community without any particular people in mind to ask about GHEI,  and still all of them said GHEI is doing well. They like everything from GHEI.

Thank you very much,

Brother Isaac

Poor Boy: A True Story

By Isaac Akwabeng (GHEI Community Health Worker) - Humjibre, Ghana - Kofi was born from a poor family. He is very intelligent, but Kofi came from a poor family. Kofi started his education in Humjibre primary school. When Kofi started his education he lost his father; what a sad story. Kofi’s mother was incredibly sad when her husband died. Kofi came close to his mother and he said, “stop crying, everything will be alright. Mommy I will fight for you while I am alive.” Kofi told his mother, “I am going to live in a big city.” Kofi’s mother was sad. She said, “you are just a little boy. I don’t want you to suffer.” Kofi’s said to his mother, “I am a little boy but I can fight for you so don’t worry.” Kofi said, “Mommy, I will be leaving tomorrow morning.” And Kofi’s mother said, “Kofi Goodbye, may God take you there.


Now Kofi is in a big city. He saw a rich man. The man asked him what his problem was now. And he told him to go home. Kofi said that he was am okay, but that he did have a problem. He told the man that he was a very intelligent guy, but at the time he started his education, he lost my father. He spoke of how his my mother is a poor woman, so she cannot afford his school fees and books, so he decided to come to a big city to find a job. The man said, “Kofi I will help you. I have everything so I will help you.” Kofi said, “Thank you very much, I am grateful. I will do everything that you ask me to do.” The man told Kofi that from now on he was going to start his education. Kofi completed Junior High School. He continued to Senior Hight School. Now Kofi is in university. He has become a surgeon doctor. He has succeeded. He can now return to look after his mother. Kofi took his mother to visit the good man, the good Samaritan. Kofi’s mother said, “Papa I thank you very much. You saved my life and my son’s life”.

Fufu Films

By Laconia Koerner - Humjibre, Ghana - Fufu symbolizes West Africa. Food is a communal activity here. When you “take” your fufu you are always taking it with someone. For me it is symbolic of a collective effort and experience. Pounding the fufu takes a lot of hard work. You cannot do it alone. Fufu Films proudly produced “United Against Malaria” in March 2010.

Films are still incredibly novel here; they really attract people from Humjibre and beyond. When we want to gather people, we show a movie, and try to intersperse it with programs. While movies are often used as hooks, they are truly a wonderful teaching tool. Films, along with the Community Health Worker’s live theatre and radio dramas, really get the Humjibre community tuned in. The performances have now traveled to other communities as well.

“United Against Malaria” is an instructional narrative. It is a progression of our outreaches; more than the direct education with lectures, posters, and flip-books. The culture here is more responsive to story telling than just the telling, so we, the community of Humjibre, have collaboratively produced a film for education and outreach against the deadliest disease in Western Ghana, malaria.

Chicka-Chang: Theatre and Film in Humjibre

By Laconia Koerner and Logan Krochalis

In February and March playwright Laconia Koerner taught drama classes to junior high school Form 1 and Form 2 students (roughly ages 12-16). Each form met for two hours once a week. During the first weeks students learned several trust exercises and theatre games designed to encourage them to interact using their bodies and voices in a structured yet spontaneous and playful way. Class favorites were Zip Zap Zop, the Circle Dance, and what came to be called “Chicka-Chang,” a game where students rapidly pass a sound and movements and/or gestures to each other in a circle. By March it was not uncommon for Laconia to hear her students cry “chicka-chang!” from the street as she walked to market.

Before leaving the U.S. for Humjibre, Laconia adapted a selection of fables written by Arnold Lobel for the stage. The students worked with three of the fables before it was decided that,“The Mouse at the Seashore” would be most appropriate to focus on for a performance, as it was reminiscent of the students’ recent trip to the beach in Accra. The students quickly memorized a simplified text of the play, a process that was conducted during class time where emphasis was put on correct English pronunciation and the meanings of several unfamiliar words. On Sunday, March 28, six groups performed versions of “The Mouse at the Seashore” for their families and friends, as well as GHEI staff at the Humjibre Community Center. A celebration followed complete with rounds of the Circle Dance and the infamous “Chicka-Chang.”

In addition to her work with the Form 1 and 2 students, Laconia wrote and directed a half-hour-long narrative film called United Against Malaria. The film stars, and is to be used by, the current Community Health Workers (CHW) of Humjibre as a teaching tool about the symptoms, treatment, and prevention of malaria. Originally written in English, the CHW’s worked tirelessly (in tandem with bed net distribution) to translate the film into Twi, as it is the most widely understood local language and will allow the film to be used in villages outside of Humjibre.
    
“It's powerful to see your everyday type life in the context of a staged performance. There gives a meaning to your life. And if other people see it becomes a common experience. Its hard for me to articulate the benefit of it, but even the simplest thing….something personal becomes universal when you and your peers act it out on stage.” - Laconia Koerner

“The kids have so much work to do, labor, studying, and so on. This is a playful outlet that is also challenging them to use what they are supposed to be learning. Theatre gives kids a voice, not that to answer a teacher or give a correct response; it literally gives them a voice. Kids don’t know who they are yet, and performing allows kids, and adults, to play with who they are.” - Laconia Koerner

“The kids in Humjibre grow up by the age of five, they are so mature. I don’t know if they ever get to experience the emotional psychic experience of children elsewhere. Theatre is spontaneous and structured. Its playful. With rules. Nothing here is all work or all play.” - Laconia Koerner

GHEI is an extremely positive influence on students in Humjibre

According to Bibiani district data, pass rates on the exam following junior high school have drastically increased in Humjibre since GHEI's founding.  From 2001 to 2009, overall pass rates increased from 24% to 99%.  Even more impressive is increase in the pass rate for girls: 4% in 2001 to 98% in 2009.

Passing the Basic Education Certification Examination (BECE) is a prerequisite to enter senior high school.  Even if students do not continue their schooling in senior high school, passing the BECE is increasingly required by employers for many jobs.

We are proud of our students and GHEI's staff who have enabled Humjibre's students to excel.

GHEI Welcomes Christina Gyening as Youth Education Teacher

Christina Gyening joined our education team in February as our new Youth Education Program teacher. She is orginally from Kojina, a small village adjoining Humjibre. She is 23 years old and completed Senior High School in 2006. She then taught in a private primary school at Anhyiam near Sefwi Bekwai for a year. We welcome her to the GHEI team!