mission accomplished...for now

We did it! It's been quite a year, and fundraising is no easy feat. However, as of April 2, the amazing McGill and Mac Chapters raised enough money to send three Junior Fellows to Africa, (including myself) as well as support a long term volunteer in either Ghana, Malawi, Zambia, or Burkina Faso this year.

Thank you and congratulations to everyone who helped out. Every little bit helped and contributed to the kind of impact EWB is aiming to achieve. Impact not only at McGill, but across Canada and ultimately in Africa and with the people for whom we are working.

In other exciting news, I recently received additional details of my summer placement in Ghana working with MoFA. More specifically, I will be working with the Catholic Diocese Development Office as my partner organization. The CDDO works to facilitate development within communities by supporting certain programs initiated by local parishioners. One such program initiated by a groups of women includes picking shea nuts and processing them into that wonderful shea butter (skin cream that we pay a lot of money for over here!). The groups have organized themselves in such a way that by working together they have better access to credit and markets. The goal of my placement therefore, will be to better understand how the CDDO goes about strengthening these women's groups and compare this with activities done by MoFA (Ministry of Food and Agriculture) through the Agriculture as a Business (henceforth AAB) plan.

Here is a picture of a shea nut (I like a visual):

As a closing note to this entry, I'm getting really excited for this summer. I can't wait to work with the women's groups, explore the gender roles, learn about shea nuts, make shea butter, get my hands dirty in Ghanaian soil, this list could go on...