August 29 - September 3. A Field Trip

On Sunday I awoke at 5am to catch a taxi to the STC bus station, where I hopped aboard a bus to Takoradi, in the Western Region of Ghana. Once in Takoradi I was picked up by John, a lawyer who works in WiLDAF’s Takoradi office, and taken to meet the rest of the Accra WiLDAF team. When I reunited with them I was told that there were actually two groups heading to train women in two different communities, one being a small inland village called Tarkwa, and the other a beachside town known as Axim. I was given the choice to spend the week in either place, and opted for Axim and the beach.

The week-long session seemed to go very well. My role was to record the goings-on of the sessions in order to compile a report afterwards. My task in this regard was complicated slightly by the fact that about 75% of the conversations during the week occurred in the local language, but I was able to get a decent handle on things through the other 25%, plus some helpful translations from the rest of the WiLDAF crew, John, Mercy, and Richard.

Monday through Thursday were taken up with group work and brainstorming on issues such as leadership and communication skills, how to advocate effectively, and identifying sex and gender roles in Ghana. On Thursday afternoon, WiLDAF assigned the participants (about 25 in total) to five groups encompassing a number of local electoral districts and gave each person a dozen posters advocating for an increased role for women in politics. The idea is that these groups will coordinate their own training sessions and awareness-raising activities within these electoral districts, which will hopefully increasing the number of women running for and elected to public office.

On Friday the participants put on a public event at a local outdoor meeting ground to share what they had learned during the week. They were able to attract about 60 people who listened to their short speeches and watched a role play designed to stress the importance of having women in decision-making positions, as well as how to best advocate for that goal.

Overall it was a cool week. It was interesting to get out of Accra and spend a week in a smaller town in a different Region of the country, and it was very encouraging to see how many people are concerned to ensure adequate numbers of women are making important public decisions.