A Better Quality of Life
Over one child in ten is severely malnourished and will probably suffer damage to long-term health.
Largely due to malnourishment, a child of ten or eleven in Ashanti is about the size and weight of a four year old in London. It didn't take long to realise that villages as poor as these cannot be expected, on the basis of a supply of clean water alone, to pull themselves out of poverty. For as long as they could remember, the villagers had spent many of their waking hours fetching water, and had lost their traditional skills and earning ability in the process.
In Gyetiase, our first village, for example:
- We made a bargain with the local authority that if we provided free school meals for the youngest children for five years, they would take on this responsibility thereafter. We built a kitchen, hired two cooks, and from January 2007 provided free school meals for the youngest ninety children registered in the primary school. A month later, registrations had doubled and the children already looked healthier.
- We set up a woodcarving school and apprenticeship scheme, since woodcarving was the villagers' occupation of choice. Today, we sell their carvings in the UK.
- We persuaded a local chief to let us farm his tribal land for ten years free of charge. At the end of this period he is contracted to renew the agreement provided the land has been well cared for.
- We have built a small factory to mill cassava and corn. This will enable the villagers to sell the produce in the local markets.
- We introduced microcredit in January 2009, enabling women to set up small businesses. Our volunteer microcredit trainer says she has never introduced a scheme so smoothly before, nor one which has spread so rapidly. As at September 2009, no woman has failed to pay back her debt.
- We have also built two schools, providing them with boys and girls latrines and handwashing facilities, using the rainwater collected on the roofs.