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Friday, May 23, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
First Impression
After a long flight, we arrived in Accra without any trouble. Accra is the capital of Ghana and is fairly modernized for a developing country. It was surprising to see several other "Obruni's" (foreigners or white people) in the city. Although most people in Accra speak English, communicating was still challenging because of the accents and the different meanings of words. Luckily, even when communication was difficult, there was usually a friendly Ghanaian to help us find our way. Jon and I even traveled alone in Accra and managed to take our first "tro-tro" ride. A tro-tro is an old 10 passenger van packed with people that is much cheaper than a taxi cab ride. The good thing is the ride is fast since there are no stop lights on the roads, but the bad thing is that the smells on the tro-tro can sometimes make for a long ride.
On Sunday, we traveled by taxi with two other volunteers to our destination in Odumase - Krobo which is a much smaller village in the Volta region. As we approached Krobo, a large rainstrom was sweeping across the mountains waiting to greet us. It made for a beautiful show, but knocked out power to the house so when we arrived we only had one candle to light up the small house.
There are a total of six people living in the volunteer house including one peace core volunteer. The living conditions in the house are very modest from US standards, but drastically better than homes in Krobo. Poverty is widespread here so even our running water is a significant luxury. It is difficult to express with words the poor living conditions of the people in Krobo, but the locals seem happy and very thankful to God for their blessings. Everyone is very friendly and eager to provide help or just become your friend.
Odumase - Krobo is very different from Accra and much more representative of an average Ghanaian village. It has one main road that is lined with street vendors all selling the same thing for a few miles. We are the only foreigners in the village and many children have never seen white people. Some people here speak English, but most speak Krobo. We have learned that "obibiknee" means "black man" so if people are yelling "white person" at us as we walk down the street, it is funny to them if you're able to yell back "black man black man" in their native tongue. In the past few days, we've picked up a few basic Krobo words, but we need to rely on an interpreter when visiting the women who make the beads. In just these past two days, the language barriers and lack of basic business skills have made it very challenging for us to complete the assigned tasks. It will take some time to get used to baby pigs and goats interrupting our business meetings!
Over the next few days, Jon and I will be traveling with a few locals to more remote villages to find the bead makers. We will try to update this with our photos later this week. Internet service can be a bit challenging to find here! Miss you all!
On Sunday, we traveled by taxi with two other volunteers to our destination in Odumase - Krobo which is a much smaller village in the Volta region. As we approached Krobo, a large rainstrom was sweeping across the mountains waiting to greet us. It made for a beautiful show, but knocked out power to the house so when we arrived we only had one candle to light up the small house.
There are a total of six people living in the volunteer house including one peace core volunteer. The living conditions in the house are very modest from US standards, but drastically better than homes in Krobo. Poverty is widespread here so even our running water is a significant luxury. It is difficult to express with words the poor living conditions of the people in Krobo, but the locals seem happy and very thankful to God for their blessings. Everyone is very friendly and eager to provide help or just become your friend.
Odumase - Krobo is very different from Accra and much more representative of an average Ghanaian village. It has one main road that is lined with street vendors all selling the same thing for a few miles. We are the only foreigners in the village and many children have never seen white people. Some people here speak English, but most speak Krobo. We have learned that "obibiknee" means "black man" so if people are yelling "white person" at us as we walk down the street, it is funny to them if you're able to yell back "black man black man" in their native tongue. In the past few days, we've picked up a few basic Krobo words, but we need to rely on an interpreter when visiting the women who make the beads. In just these past two days, the language barriers and lack of basic business skills have made it very challenging for us to complete the assigned tasks. It will take some time to get used to baby pigs and goats interrupting our business meetings!
Over the next few days, Jon and I will be traveling with a few locals to more remote villages to find the bead makers. We will try to update this with our photos later this week. Internet service can be a bit challenging to find here! Miss you all!
Thursday, May 15, 2008
A New Day Job
And this is how every great adventure should begin…
Here’s our tentative location schedule:
May 16th - Arrive in Accra
May 18th - Travel to Krobo
June 30th - Travel to Cape Coast
July 25th - Meet Iowa's Lutheran Church of Hope in Ho
August 10th - Travel back to Accra
September 4th - Depart to London
September 17th - Return to D.C.
While in these locations, we’ll lead the following projects:
KROBO
Glass Grinding Business - Establishing a business to provide raw material for women who handcraft glass beads used in jewelry. Currently, women must spend a lot of time cleaning and crushing recycled glass purchased from middlemen at the market. WIP hopes we can create a process to automate the glass grinding process and establish a business to sell this raw material to bead makers. By eliminating the amount of preparation involved, the women will be able to spend more time crafting the beadwork to increase their income potential. In order to complete this project, we’ll need to do market research, setup the glass grinding machine, select distribution locations, hire staff, procure raw materials, and determine overall the pricing and financial viability of the new business.
Market Research - Most of the beads sold at market are created by woman in remote villages and then are peddled by middleman who markup the beads to the end customers. Women in Progress is not sure how these middleman acquire the beads, but would like to create a direct relationship with the bead makers. Once a direct relationship is established, WIP will provide the bead makers with a living wage for their work. This process will require us to travel to several small villages to find the bead makers. After discovering these sources, we will need to determine the quality, production capacity, pricing, and logistics involved for WIP to purchase the beads directly.
CAPE COAST
Costing Epiphany Project - Due in part to foreign aid and retail price misconceptions , many women feel that Global Mamas should be paying a higher wage for their goods. The costing epiphany project will analyze this issue on a per-product basis and educate the women to help build goodwill towards WIP. To accomplish this, we will be analyzing the financials of Global Mamas to ensure the wages paid are fair, We will also be charged with educating the women on operational expenses involved with product sales. This will involve benchmarking wages with similar professions, reviewing fair trade wage guidelines, and comparing US marketplace product price points.
ACCRA
Search Engine Marketing - Global Mamas operates a website which sells the fair trade goods made by Ghana women. Goods sold through the Global Mama website have a higher profitability and WIP would like to increase the number of internet sales. We will work on making the website more likely to be found by search engines. This will also involve creating pay-per-click search engine advertising for Global Mamas. If time allows, we will provide site redesign recommendations which we may implement while back in the U.S.
eBay product store - As new goods are placed on the Global Mama website, WIP would like them to appear on eBay. We will be working on updating this process to provide an easy way to list new items.
If anyone would like to learn more about Ghana or view a map of the locations, the U.S. Department of State has a good summary at this site:
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1124.html
We'll be updating the site at least once a week with our pictures and video from the trip so stay tuned for more!
We’ll be departing tonight on a long trek to Ghana, Africa. Once in Ghana, we’ll be staying in 3-4 different locations and assigned to several different projects through Women in Progress (WIP). WIP is an organization focused on improving the lives of women by providing training and support for women-owned businesses. We'll also be helping with Global Mamas which is the fair trade branch of WIP that currently works with over 400 women to produce fair trade goods for export to the US and UK.I am unemployed. I have no car to drive and no place to call home.
And, I‘ve never felt more fortunate.
Here’s our tentative location schedule:
May 16th - Arrive in Accra
May 18th - Travel to Krobo
June 30th - Travel to Cape Coast
July 25th - Meet Iowa's Lutheran Church of Hope in Ho
August 10th - Travel back to Accra
September 4th - Depart to London
September 17th - Return to D.C.
While in these locations, we’ll lead the following projects:
KROBO
Glass Grinding Business - Establishing a business to provide raw material for women who handcraft glass beads used in jewelry. Currently, women must spend a lot of time cleaning and crushing recycled glass purchased from middlemen at the market. WIP hopes we can create a process to automate the glass grinding process and establish a business to sell this raw material to bead makers. By eliminating the amount of preparation involved, the women will be able to spend more time crafting the beadwork to increase their income potential. In order to complete this project, we’ll need to do market research, setup the glass grinding machine, select distribution locations, hire staff, procure raw materials, and determine overall the pricing and financial viability of the new business.
Market Research - Most of the beads sold at market are created by woman in remote villages and then are peddled by middleman who markup the beads to the end customers. Women in Progress is not sure how these middleman acquire the beads, but would like to create a direct relationship with the bead makers. Once a direct relationship is established, WIP will provide the bead makers with a living wage for their work. This process will require us to travel to several small villages to find the bead makers. After discovering these sources, we will need to determine the quality, production capacity, pricing, and logistics involved for WIP to purchase the beads directly.
CAPE COAST
Costing Epiphany Project - Due in part to foreign aid and retail price misconceptions , many women feel that Global Mamas should be paying a higher wage for their goods. The costing epiphany project will analyze this issue on a per-product basis and educate the women to help build goodwill towards WIP. To accomplish this, we will be analyzing the financials of Global Mamas to ensure the wages paid are fair, We will also be charged with educating the women on operational expenses involved with product sales. This will involve benchmarking wages with similar professions, reviewing fair trade wage guidelines, and comparing US marketplace product price points.
ACCRA
Search Engine Marketing - Global Mamas operates a website which sells the fair trade goods made by Ghana women. Goods sold through the Global Mama website have a higher profitability and WIP would like to increase the number of internet sales. We will work on making the website more likely to be found by search engines. This will also involve creating pay-per-click search engine advertising for Global Mamas. If time allows, we will provide site redesign recommendations which we may implement while back in the U.S.
eBay product store - As new goods are placed on the Global Mama website, WIP would like them to appear on eBay. We will be working on updating this process to provide an easy way to list new items.
If anyone would like to learn more about Ghana or view a map of the locations, the U.S. Department of State has a good summary at this site:
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1124.html
We'll be updating the site at least once a week with our pictures and video from the trip so stay tuned for more!
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