Ghana Blog: The Story So Far

Keep up with the progress of the MAP Ghana project through our blog entries by Rachel and Amy!

Latest Entry
Group Fundraising We’re going to be out there soliciting on the streets of Richmond and Kingston. Begging, bribing and stealing, doing whatever it takes to achieve our goal. And we are going to bend every law backwards to make this happen. It is, you’ve guessed it, an Auction of Promises.

Latest Entry

Group Fundraising

We’re going to be out there soliciting on the streets of Richmond and Kingston. Begging, bribing and stealing, doing whatever it takes to achieve our goal. And we are going to bend every law backwards to make this happen. It is, you’ve guessed it, an Auction of Promises.

Previous Entries
Trouble in Paradise We can’t say being in our group is without its pressure. We’ve all found different ways to deal with it – Melissa has fits of hysterical laughter, Aylon compulsively buys tighter and tighter suits, Obinna obsessively suggests group-hugs and has his hair turned into a piece of modern art.
And Then There Were None We have now amounted a significant pile of disused scrapbooks – whose glitter is dull and whose pages are empty – their stories cut short by a cruel twist of fate. We are considering burying the scrapbooks in tribute to the 6 youths who have been seen no more: Charlotte, Ross, Gareth, Kevin, Josh and Sarah are those who have since left our number.
That Wasn't It for 2008 The trust group met up this week to begin work on applying to funds and trusts for money for the trip. When Michael produced his 300 page £200 book on the issue, however, we all realised we had our work packed in for us. As we each separately work through the trusts searching for the ones which will accept our application, for example the one for Fan museums Kate found probably wouldn’t be a great idea.
No Frills Weekend To add to the disappointment of the safari, the group also found out they would be embarking on a ‘no frills' weekend in the New Forest next Easter. After the ‘excitement’ of the Wong Walk during the residential in November, the response of the group can only be described as ‘Noooooooooooooooooo!”.
Making a Difference the agenda presented to us really emphasised the reality of the trip and allowed us to express to the rest of the group what we hoped for and aimed to achieve from this experience. The thought of the difference that we could make to someone else’s life however miniscule, and the enormous difference we could make to our own was, in Gareth’s words, incredibly mind-blowing.
Youth Creating Change In the week after coming back we have turned our attention from each other and the group, to Ghana and the partner organisation we’ll be working for there, the YCC – a non-profit organisation for the communities and youths of Ghana standing for Youth Creating Change.
Team Building and Training Residential Over the weekend, from the 28th to the 30th, we went to Woodrow High House in North London, which was apparently haunted according to some people in the group. According to most sources however, ghosts were by no means the scariest things seen in the house over the course of those three days... The weekend consisted of a mixture of workshops, swimming and a few very questionable dares – but we’ll leave the last one to your imagination. The workshops stretched from identity to low ropes, theme to the infamous Wong Walk in the dark of the night.
Parents and Young People's Evening After going through the gruelling interview process the final 16 of us found ourselves meeting as a group for the first time on the 6th of November. Our parents came along as well and the youth leaders and mentors explained to us about all the details of the project. At first things were a little awkward and quiet in the group... but in next to no time our parents were chatting away happily and asking questions.
The Recruitment Stage The first stage of the project was an interview process, to select 16 young people to be part of the commonwealth youth project. Having seen one too many episodes of programmes such as The X Factor, I think we were all expecting a terrifying audition procedure, but in fact it was all fun and very relaxed, if a little nerve-racking.

Previous Entries

Trouble in Paradise

We can’t say being in our group is without its pressure. We’ve all found different ways to deal with it – Melissa has fits of hysterical laughter, Aylon compulsively buys tighter and tighter suits, Obinna obsessively suggests group-hugs and has his hair turned into a piece of modern art.

And Then There Were None

We have now amounted a significant pile of disused scrapbooks – whose glitter is dull and whose pages are empty – their stories cut short by a cruel twist of fate. We are considering burying the scrapbooks in tribute to the 6 youths who have been seen no more: Charlotte, Ross, Gareth, Kevin, Josh and Sarah are those who have since left our number.

That Wasn't It for 2008

The trust group met up this week to begin work on applying to funds and trusts for money for the trip. When Michael produced his 300 page £200 book on the issue, however, we all realised we had our work packed in for us. As we each separately work through the trusts searching for the ones which will accept our application, for example the one for Fan museums Kate found probably wouldn’t be a great idea.

No Frills Weekend

To add to the disappointment of the safari, the group also found out they would be embarking on a ‘no frills' weekend in the New Forest next Easter. After the ‘excitement’ of the Wong Walk during the residential in November, the response of the group can only be described as ‘Noooooooooooooooooo!”.

Making a Difference

the agenda presented to us really emphasised the reality of the trip and allowed us to express to the rest of the group what we hoped for and aimed to achieve from this experience. The thought of the difference that we could make to someone else’s life however miniscule, and the enormous difference we could make to our own was, in Gareth’s words, incredibly mind-blowing.

Youth Creating Change

In the week after coming back we have turned our attention from each other and the group, to Ghana and the partner organisation we’ll be working for there, the YCC – a non-profit organisation for the communities and youths of Ghana standing for Youth Creating Change.

Team Building and Training Residential

Over the weekend, from the 28th to the 30th, we went to Woodrow High House in North London, which was apparently haunted according to some people in the group. According to most sources however, ghosts were by no means the scariest things seen in the house over the course of those three days... The weekend consisted of a mixture of workshops, swimming and a few very questionable dares – but we’ll leave the last one to your imagination. The workshops stretched from identity to low ropes, theme to the infamous Wong Walk in the dark of the night.

Parents and Young People's Evening

After going through the gruelling interview process the final 16 of us found ourselves meeting as a group for the first time on the 6th of November. Our parents came along as well and the youth leaders and mentors explained to us about all the details of the project. At first things were a little awkward and quiet in the group... but in next to no time our parents were chatting away happily and asking questions.

The Recruitment Stage

The first stage of the project was an interview process, to select 16 young people to be part of the commonwealth youth project. Having seen one too many episodes of programmes such as The X Factor, I think we were all expecting a terrifying audition procedure, but in fact it was all fun and very relaxed, if a little nerve-racking.