Why I Am So Tired

Apart from just having too many things to do … work, packing for my upcoming cross-Canada drive, figuring out what to take to Ghana (still struggling in this department), packing the rest of my things up for storage, and tackling pre-dep reading and assignments … I will confess that when I should be sleeping (like right now) I often find myself exploring the internet trail past JFs have left for me. I can't wait!

A Few Facts About Ghana

It's always nice to know a bit about where you're going, so here are a few quick facts about Ghana I uncovered that I thought you might find interesting:

1. Lake Volta is the world’s largest artificial lake.
2. Ghana has 9,995 km of paved road; 52,266 km of unpaved road.
3. There 23,832,495 people living in 239,460 sq km (which is slightly smaller than Oregon).
4. There are 11 airports in Ghana, 7 of which have paved runways.
5. Life expectancy at birth is 58.98 yr for males, 60.75 years for females.
6. 17.54% of the country is deemed arable land, with 310 sq km of irrigated land.
7. There are 5 km of oil pipelines, and 309 km of pipeline for refined products.
8. There are no AM radio stations, 86 FM, and 3 shortwave radio broadcast stations.
9. Annual rate of urbanization is 3.5%.
10. Highest point in the country is Mount Afadjato, reaching 880 m.

(Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/GH.html)

Getting Ready and Learning More

Apart from being Canada Day, this day also marks one month until I begin my pre-departure training. Wow! It doesn’t seem too long ago that I was still just contemplating whether or not I should apply for a fellowship. Now, I need to start thinking about how to pack for my 4.5 month Ghanaian adventure. And for those of you who know my packing woes, this might be the biggest challenge of the entire year for me. For some reason, even after spending the last year living out of suitcase (a couple of vacations and on the road as a consultant), I still haven’t mastered the skill. However, if I forget socks this time, it won’t be quite as bad as when I forgot them in February heading up to Sundre, AB!

But, before I begin deeply worrying about this packing issue, I’d like to answer two questions I'm commonly asked. The first being, what will you be doing in Ghana? To best answer this question (until I get over there and am on the ground) I will explain a little bit more about what is the Agriculture as a Business Program is about.

In essence, AAB is a change journey, helping subsistence farmers to build their business capacity, leading to improved earning capacity.

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture is seen as a sustainable organization in Northern Ghana, and through using their field staff and history with local farmers, has worked with EWB to develop a curriculum delivery strategy that focuses building capacity and ownership in agricultural communities in Ghana. The three-year goals for the Agriculture as a Business Program are:

• 70% of agriculture field staff in Northern Ghana use the Agriculture as a Business Curriculum to better support farmers.
• MoFA in the Northern Region becomes an expert in commodity chain development. This means providing market information to farmers and facilitating better linkages between farmers and buyers.
• MoFA National and Donors change their systems to better support small-scale farmers. This means support systems that provide performance incentives and give field staff the flexibility to design and implement demand-driven programs.

In summary … AAB aims to promote agricultural commercialization and empower farmer groups to increase their productivity.

The AAB Curriculum is laid out in a matrix of behavioral changes, starting from the formation of farmer's groups over independent farming, understanding and employing group marketing, increasing loan preparedness, through to detailed business plan development, execution and evaluation. MoFA is implementing this curriculum through the use of Agriculture Extension Agents, who will act as the AAB lead in the Northern Districts, advocating the curriculum and championing the required changes.

The use of AEAs as local experts:

• Provides a positive role model to demonstrate MoFA’s commitment to the AAB Curriculum
• Increases farmer's understanding by representing their perspective and interests
• Maximizes movement along the change curve by providing empathetic leadership
• Facilitates close relationships with the program by using their existing relationships within the community
• Builds capability within the districts to own and sustain farming solutions

Right now the current JFs are working in different areas of the AAB implementation:

• Unrooting some fundamental assumptions MoFA has about farmers through a couple of innovative programs
• Helping MoFA field staff promote agriculture as a business through the unique Agriculture as a Business curriculum
• Looking into how MoFA can better share market information with farmers and help them align their farming decisions to the market
• Figuring out how MoFA’s agriculture college can better prepare AEAs to promote agriculture as a business and become entrepreneurs themselves in the agriculture sector

Over the next couple weeks, I’ll be figuring out where I’ll be continuing on in their work.

The second question, how can I support your EWB work?

(Ok, this really just feels like blatant advertising and money grabbing, but I guess I will include this section anyway).

1. Get involved. Get thinking.

Check out http://www.ewb.ca/en/whatyoucando/index.html There are many ways for you to make a difference in your own community.

Join myewb.ca to participate in discussions on development, free trade, poverty and becoming an advocate for positive change in our communities.

2. Join EWB as a full member.

… especially if you live in the London/Kitchener/Waterloo/Guelph area. All membership fees collected over the next few months from this area will be going directly to funding my fellowship.

Go to: http://my.ewb.ca/profile/SignUp , select Grand River Professional Chapter. Once you have created your profile you will be asked if you would like to upgrade from associate member to full member. This is where you pay your money.

Note: Only membership fees from Grand River are directly funding my fellowship, however, I do encourage you to join your local professional (or student) chapter.

3. Make a Donation (This is where you can really help!)

While I am volunteering my time, there are costs associated with the work that we do. Teams across all EWB chapters are continually working with our corporate sponsors, but I have also set up a link to allow individuals to directly contribute to this work, and my overseas placement.

So, friends and family, PLEASE click here to donate: http://volunteers.ewb.ca/elizabethlogan

(Canadian) Tax receipts can only be sent for donations of $20 or more. But even a $5 (a fancy-lots-of-adjectives latte equivalent) or $10 (the over-“buttered” popcorn and soda your waistline didn’t really need at the movies equivalent) donation, if you don’t care about that tax receipt also makes a difference.

4. Think about corporate sponsorship and corporate education

Again, this is especially important if you work in the London-Kitchener-Waterloo-Guelph region. If you are interested in becoming a corporate sponsor, having the EWB education team come to your work place and give lunch n’learn sessions on development or possibly donating prizes, employees or volunteers for future events, contact the chapter: http://waterloo.ewb.ca/contact. Or, if you prefer, let me know, and I can put you in touch with the right people.

Of course, if you work outside of the L-K-W-G area, you can definitely also be involved at the corporate level. If interested, I’d be happy to connect you with the right people.

That’s the end of my due diligence donation spiel. EWB is an amazing organization, who is committed to actioning their ideas, and not just running with advocacy campaigns. Everyone who I’ve met so far through this organization is truly amazing and dedicated to their work, with local volunteers often treating it as a second full-time job.