What didn’t I do? It was a service learning trip so I spent 2 days in class. Through anthropological lenses we analyzed history, economics and more. We also spent a great amount of time looking at the lasting effects of colonialism and the voluntourism industry. We were critical of the work we were doing and our greater roles both in Ghana and the US. The rest of the week I spent interning with a local foundation. One of the things I enjoyed about this program is that is wasn’t “Americans saving Africa” but instead locals seeing a need, generating a solution, and simply using us to bounce ideas and make these solutions a reality. I was a member of the public health team. The foundation’s overall mission is to end child labor and trafficking. In doing this work they had noticed that teenage pregnancy is a huge cause of child labor. Because of this they did anti-teenage pregnancy presentations, but they weren’t sustainable. So the project myself and my team were tasked with was creating reproductive health clubs. We designed the curriculum covering everything from menstruation and basic sex ed to contraceptive options and reproductive rights. We also attended local schools asking headmasters for permission to run the club, reviewed applications and selected the first cohort, and then ran the first couple of club meetings.
It was fascinating to see the gap in knowledge between different schools and between students. I was surprised to find in one school that none of the girls seemed to understand mensuration but all the boys did. Only one student actually knew how pregnancy occurred (he gave us a lovely demonstration, and you could he watched one too many R rated movies), the rest of the students either did not know or assumed when a boy and girl hangout she just gets pregnant. All the students were super receptive to learning as they saw teenage pregnancy as an issue in their community and wanted to change that. Which was great! Headmasters on the other hand were a bit more difficult. Some were super glad we were doing this work and were happy to make a club. Others had a hard time seeing the value in such a club. One headmaster we visited was looking for what we would provide. Recently a Dutch school had come and donated a ton of school supplies. The headmaster blamed terrorist groups and certain religions for teenage pregnancy and told us that we should go help other countries. It was extremely frustrating but in that meeting alone I learned a lot about gender power structures and foreign “aid”.
A year later and I’ve learned so much. My time in Ghana was invaluable and something I will never fully be able to articulate. I loved the grassroots efforts I had the opportunity to participate in but got very frustrated when policy did not match the work we were doing and I learned the importance of this. That’s why this summer I have an internship related to health policy :)
Ghana you were amazing, maybe one day I’ll be back.