Responding to a Call for Ghana
Welcome to Axim, Ghana
Axim Waterfront
RESPONDING to a call for Ghana
Axim is a small fishing town on the Sea of Guinea in Ghana with a population of less than 20,000. During the peak fishing season, May through August, it reaches 30,000. Diana traveled with a delegation from Global Citizen Journey as a cultural exchange to assist in analysis and training for community action. The delegation planned to focus on community development, education and business development while undertaking the creation of an orphanage as a service project. For Diana this was an opportunity to step into action to address some of the deep needs of the African continent which she had seen first hand in Nigeria a few years earlier working with Motorola.
Catalyzing the Community
Catalyzing the Community
BUILDING relationships and identifying issues
The delegation convened a town hall where 150 local citizens came to explore their community and possibilities. As a co-creator with the core design team of the town hall venue, Diana helped with the design and facilitation where appreciative inquiry was used in a world café format along with future search model. These formats were chosen to foster participants representing the community working together about possibilities and issues that mattered to them. The results of the town hall included topics such as education for the children, developing work for the people, and sanitation in their area and became part of an initial strategic plan.
The delegation’s counterparts from Ghana had indicated a high need for business development particularly for women so this was her primary focus. In Axim, her Ghanaian contact was Gifty Baaba Asmah from Takoradi Sekondi, a woman who had courageously launched the Daasgift Quality Foundation for microfinance only months earlier. The journey that Diana and Gifty traveled together in Ghana has developed into a relationship that will last a lifetime.
The Axim community revolves around fishing for their food and livelihood. This is true for the women fishmongers as well as the men. Each day they go down to the boats, purchase fish, cook it and sell it both locally and inland in larger populated areas. But the women need cash to purchase the fish from the fishermen and thus the need for microfinance. However, the presenting problem is not always the only solution or best solution for significant improvement.
Women's Group Singing, preparing for paper making
Diana organized an empowerment day for these women entrepreneurs. Sixty women were invited and over 147 attended – a typical Ghanaian response – many taking a day away from their daily work as fishmongers. As with gatherings of this kind, joyful singing and dancing came before the speakers who covered a range of subjects such as time management and prevention of HIV-AIDS, subjects to support them in their every day lives as well as help them be effective business women.
In order to understand the fishing community and the stakeholders, Diana initiated an assessment of the presenting problem by mapping and doing preliminary analysis of the fishing sector value chain. Upon having a fuller picture of the work in the community, Diana reflected upon how microfinance could help meet the needs for the women fishmongers and initiated further action.
CREATING solutions
Upon her return to the U.S. Diana continued to work with Ghanaians such as Frank who gathered more information. Diana mapped the fishing sector with the various processes, the basic requirements and the outputs of each, and example pictures from the Axim area. (See a simplified version )
Successful Fishmongers Lending Group, near Sekondi Ghana
Josephine (r) at baking oven