Today saw an encouraging development in our efforts to renew the activities within the Fulani camp! Audrey, Ben and I arrived at the camp at 9:30am today in order to facilitate the planned focus group with the men, only to find the education building filled with…children. After a momentary panicked “Did they misunderstand and think we were starting up meetings again today,” their bright smiles and cheerful “Hello Madam” let us know they were apparently just glad to see us! Then I felt like a jerk. Alai arrived and explained that the men were just down the road and would be here soon. True to his word, within about 10 minutes, all 11 of the attending fellows had arrived and the meeting began.
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The majority of the time this morning was spent addressing the challenges they face with their children’s attendance at school. The current situation is that there are about 8-12 children who would like to go to school, but the taxi driver charges 120GH¢ per month to bring them to and from school. Some attendees expressed concern about being able to afford this expense (which is a valid concern) and thus we encouraged them to explore alternate possibilities. Once we established that MoM’s role in the community was not to build them a full-time school nor pay the taxi fees, as some suggested, most seemed open to suggesting options of their own. By the end of the meeting, there seemed to be some progress made and although no commitments have been made yet, it was a good environment to discuss options.
We have been asked to return in mid-March in order to follow up with them, which we will gladly do. After all that we have learned today and the insight from those who attended, I am excited to see what solutions they will find. It will be interesting to attend the women’s group next week to gather their perspectives on the matter and see how they are different or similar.
Great stuff!!! Interesting that 'financial management' is becoming a key aspect of health and education, since managing the money to pay for the health and education needs has not been considered a priority before in these communities. Great to see Ben sharing his strengths in his new environment! Thank you Audry for being the 'constant' and keeping the confidence of the camp running. Michaela, you certainly have a new set of challenges, and should be assured of full support from all of us. Well done team!
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