Category: Ghana

Akwaaba (“Welcome” in Twi) from Accra; Ghana’s capital city. With a metropolitan population of 4.3 million people Accra is a bustling city constantly on the go. Living in Accra is to be constantly surrounded by heat and humidity, as well as the smells of people’s perfume, street food stalls, and diesel fumes that allow vehicles to continue driving even during flood conditions. We arrived during the beginning of the rainy season, so humidity is high, and rain is becoming almost a daily occurrence; sometimes gentle and warm, sometimes torrential and dangerous.

We’ve arrived and are all living together like one big family in our Barbie dreamhouse pink house in Kpeshie, a suburb of Accra. We will be spending half of our time here in Accra, with the remainder spent in rural Northern Ghana with one group in Yua and the other in Sirigu. The amenities in Accra are better than any of us were expecting with our own kitchen, plenty of bathrooms, and lots of overhead fans to help keep us cool. Two of our group (Heather Bauman and Madison Russel) have been in Africa previously and so had a better idea of what to expect, while the others (Heather Ellis and Mark Rossi) have not traveled outside North America or Europe.

We spent our first days getting Ghanaian phone numbers, groceries, trying local food, and going to beaches. We also got to meet our wonderful neighbour, Jennifer Agazere, and seeing some culturally significant landmarks while we tried to acclimatize to the heat. Some of the first places we visited were Independence square, the museum for Ghana’s founder Kwame Nkrumah, and the local artists market. We learned much about Ghana’s independence from Britain, which they gained in 1957, a brief 2 years before Newfoundland became part of Canada. We are also doing our best to support small crafters in the local economy, visiting markets to buy food and purchase gifts for our loved ones back home.

We are here to help small rural subsistence farmers increase their animals’ health and wellbeing by counselling in animal nutrition, importance of vaccination and deworming protocols, and appropriate housing. We can then troubleshoot the issues they face with limited resources, remote locations, and using only locally available materials that are environmentally friendly. This should have the trickle-down affect of increasing the production value of their animals, which will help raise the level of their families’ nutrition and their income. We hope this will increase the local populations and environmental health in the area as well. Since women are more likely to be the owners or poultry, and those that care for most of the small farmers livestock, we assist in empowering women in their communities. We are going to achieve this by running educational workshops, working with farmers one on one to troubleshoot issues, working with local women’s groups, and providing free vaccination and deworming to local animals.

We are working with the Ghanaian Poultry Network (GAPNET) run by Ghana veterinarian Dr. Anthony Nsoh Akunzule, and organization that runs educational workshops and seminars to help farmers learn how to get the most out of their animals. Our local supervisor is Dr. Geoffrey Akabua, a veterinarian that has practiced both in Canada and Ghana and a great go-between for the differences between veterinary practice in Canada and Ghana. Gloria Essel, and employee of GAPNET and a fast friend, has been helping us get settled in our new home for the next three months. She is making sure we know where to get groceries and supplies, helping us plan weekend entertainment, and showing us culturally significant landmarks around southern Ghana. She has taken us to things such as Elmina Castle, a dark reminder of the history of the slave trade in West Africa, Boti waterfalls, and the Kakum National Park and the famous Canopy Walk which is 40 metres above the forest floor.

Wυntεεŋa (Good afternoon) from Yua, Ghana! We’ve been in Yua for a month and a half now, and can’t believe how fast the time is passing! As per our last blog post, we had a busy first week here, getting the ball rolling on all the activities we had planned to help the community. Now that we have almost completed all of them, we can delve deeper into the components behind them.

Upon our arrival, we realized that vaccines were of the greatest interest to community members. According to the farmers, their sheep, goats, and fowl were dying in large numbers from preventable diseases, particularly during the months of March and October. Luckily, we arrived right before the next predicted bout of illnesses, thus we spent most of our time
administering vaccinations in order to help as many Yua members as possible. Administered vaccines included: Newcastle disease for fowl, Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) for sheep and goats, and Rabies for dogs.

– Newcastle disease is a contagious viral disease, that is transmissible to humans. Unfortunately, no treatment is available for the disease, but it can be prevented through prophylactic vaccines. The vaccines administered are called I-2, which are manufactured right in Ghana! We have been able to immunize approximately 2000 fowl, which include some chickens and guinea fowl.

– PPR is a highly contagious viral disease that, in Ghana, affects mostly sheep and goats. There are no available treatments for the disease, although supportive care can be given in order to aid the animal in recovery. Unfortunately, lack of funds and resources in Yua prevent farmers from being able to afford supportive care for their affected livestock, resulting in large amounts of deaths. This is why vaccination against PPR is so important for the community. We vaccinated around 1400 sheep and goats, reaching 190 different families throughout the community.

Lastly, Rabies is a viral disease that is transmissible to humans, as well as other mammals, and has no treatment available. Dogs, being a large vector for rabies, are free to roam around the community, resulting in increased risks of dog bites. Recently, there has been an international focus on eradicating rabies globally by the year 2030. In order to take part of
the global initiative, we saw no better place to start than with Yua! We vaccinated 60 dogs against the virus in the community.

While vaccinating, we were able to educate the farmers on the disease and give them some background on the organizations that brought us to them. Community members were very thankful, and came in large numbers to take advantage of the great project put forward through GAPNET and Veterinarians Without Borders.

Our next big project has been creating a fowl-rearing protocol in order to decrease deaths in young keets. Farmers have repeatedly mentioned losing large numbers of chicks at very young ages, and are unsure as to why. In order to come up with a solution, we set up an experiment where we raised half the chicks under optimized conditions within the means of community members, and the other half were raised under traditional methods in Yua.

Traditional methods allow the chicks and their mother to roam free throughout the day, to forage for their own food and water. At night, they are given shelter, and small amounts food and water. As they roam immediately after hatching, large amounts of chicks tend to die due to starvation, predation, exhaustion, and heat loss. In contrast, optimized conditions allow the chicks to be in an enclosed and safe area with their mother for the first two weeks of rearing. The chicks are then also provided with food and water, while the mother provides them with heat. All of these provisions allow the chicks to survive through their most vulnerable life stage. We are currently a week and a half into our experiment, and have yet to lose one chick using our optimized protocol.

On our time off, we were able to explore the area and spend time with the community. One of our most interesting adventures, has been to visit the Paga Crocodile Pond, where we met a 78 year old crocodile, and saw dozens of others. The crocodiles in Paga are not domesticated, but they maintain a positive mutual relationship with the locals of Paga.

Our local guide, Issaka, invited us to his sister-in-laws graduation ceremony. The ceremony was quite different than what we see in North America. Rather than robes, diplomas and hand shaking, graduating in the Upper East involves a large dancing event! Family members and friends dance up to the graduates, and give them monetary gifts to start their
businesses. We had a great time listening to Ghanaian music, and seeing the locals dance.

This past month, we have travelled to two districts in the Northern region of Ghana to meet farmers in rural communities.  The road was often rough but our driver expertly avoided the potholes that the rain created in the dirt road.  We departed early every morning for the communities so we could meet the farmers before they left for their farms.  

Cows on the road in the village.While we greeted the members of the community in the local language, chairs and benches were brought and placed in a circle under the shade of a tree.  Ghana has a large diversity of ethnic groups and languages and it’s a fun challenge to learn the proper greeting for each community we visited.  In respect of the local custom, we accompanied our guide to greet the chief of the community to explain our presence, and to receive his approval before we spoke to the farmers.  Once the members of the community had assembled, we began our presentation.

We shared information about good animal husbandry and spoke about providing shelter, feed and water to the animals.  We also provided sensitization on disease prevention and control and proper maintenance of a shelter.  By implementing these animal care practices, we hope that farmers will be able to increase their animal production as well as their income.

Following our presentation, we invited farmers to share their experiences with animal husbandry and we found their stories inspirational.  Some of them had already improved their animal care practices and reported increased production, and were able to sell their meat and eggs at the market for additional income.

Although the communities showed a great interest in animal production, they also faced significant constraints.  Major challenges preventing the start or expansion of animal production include limited access to water, medicine, veterinary services and start-up capital.  High mortality rates due to disease also prevent the growth of their herd or flock size.  The community members asked many questions and we did our best to address their needs and discuss possible solutions that could be implemented.  We always tried to respect the local culture and way of thinking as we shared ideas.

We hope that sharing knowledge and skills with farmers will enable them to improve their animal production.  By empowering farmers, they can become their own agents of change, and promote sustainable development in their communities to help improve their livelihoods.

Ya Bulika (Good morning) from Yua, Ghana! We’ve currently been in Yua, a village in the Upper East Region for a little over a week, and have adapted to the rural life.

Prior to our arrival in Yua, we spent a few weeks in Accra, Ghana’s capital, where we participated in quite a few interesting activities. Yuqing took part in a rabies workshop aimed to evaluate and improve Ghanaian surveillance systems and action plans to decrease rabies prevalence in both humans and animals. Once Nima arrived, we shadowed a practicing veterinarian, who brought us along for cattle vaccination, poultry farm evaluations, and livestock market monitoring. These visits helped us understand the role of livestock in Ghana, allowing us to prepare an action plan for our project in Yua.

Our project in Yua is tied to GAPNET, an NGO with a new relationship to VWB, and we are the first group of VWB volunteers to work with them. GAPNET aims to promote sustainable development, by providing both resources and knowledge on livestock husbandry and it’s relation to human health to Ghanaians. This is exactly what we will be doing throughout the summer in Yua, with the help our supervisors: Dr. Geoffrey Akabua and Dr. Anthony Akunzule.

A few days after our arrival in Yua, we visited the community leaders which included the head Chief. We introduced ourselves, and explained our purpose for visiting their village. This meeting was extremely important to our project, as we needed to receive permission from the leaders to work in the community.

Our first veterinary activity in Yua, involved students from Yua Junior High School. Drilling for Hope, an American NGO, provided 25 single-parent school children with fowls to take care of. We visited these students to check-up on their fowl, and provide them with vaccinations against Newcastle Disease.

Our next activity, was vaccinating sheep, goats and dogs belonging to women involved in women’s groups in Yua. In two days, we vaccinated 400 sheep and goats against Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR), and a dozen dogs against Rabies. Although 400 seems like a large number, we will also be doing multiple community vaccination clinics throughout Yua, for an estimated 1200 more livestock within the next month.

One of our most important activities this week involved presenting a seminar on livestock husbandry to women’s groups in Yua. A total of 50 women, from five different groups joined us to discuss proper sheltering, feeding, and disease control for small ruminants; rearing of Guinea Fowl Chicks; importance of veterinary care for livestock; and, drought resistant plants to provide feed to both livestock and humans during the dry season.

Written by Lydie-Amy and Stephanie, participants in the Young Volunteer Program in Ghana working with SEND Ghana.

Dasiba! Good morning from Tamale, Ghana!

We find it hard to believe that we have spent almost a month in this beautiful country.  After spending a couple of days in Accra, the nation’s capital, we took a short flight up to Tamale, the capital of the Northern Region.  Upon our arrival, we had a warm welcome from the staff at SEND-Ghana, our partner organization.  Patience Ayamba, the Program Officer of the Eastern Corridor region has been invaluable to us as we started to settle in.

SEND-Ghana is a non-governmental organization whose mission is to promote good governance and gender equality through advocacy, policy awareness, and extension services. After almost 20 years of operation, SEND-Ghana has a variety of projects from promoting free maternal healthcare to helping resolve conflicts between communities though peace mediators.  They have projects in gender equality, maternal health, education, responsible governance and much more.  We were humbled to learn of SEND-Ghana’s success stories and their cooperative and integrated development framework.  We are just beginning to understand the complexity of social development issues, and it is a great privilege to be working with them this summer.

One of their initiatives is the Policy Advocacy Program that helps to raise citizen’s awareness about politics and the impact it has on their daily lives. The goal is to advocate for good governance that promotes transparency and accountability. We were fortunate to be invited to attend the Regional Consultative Forum on the 2019 budget, hosted by SEND-Ghana.  The purpose of the conference was to allow citizens, community and industry representatives the opportunity to review government policies and provide input into the budget for next year’s initiatives.  Following presentations by ministry officials and an open question period, participants were divided into groups based on their sector of expertise: Agriculture, Health, Education and Social Protection. The objective was to identify the main issues in each sector, and suggest possible solutions that could be addressed in the government budget.  It was inspirational to observe the conference participants engage in passionate discussion, and to learn about the current challenges faced by the Agriculture sector.

Another of SEND-Ghana’s programs is the Livelihood Security Program that aims to improve food security in the Northern Region of Ghana.  In this region, the success of smallholder crop production is vulnerable to climate change due to the long dry season and dependence on rain fed irrigation.  However, animals are well-adapted to the grasslands and arid climate of the area.  By empowering farmers with technical knowledge, we hope they will be able to diversify their income from crops and increase their profits with animal production.

We are excited to be working alongside our supervisor, Dr. Joseph Ansong Danquah, at the Training of Trainers’ workshops.  The goal of these 3-day sessions is to train community agriculture volunteers and extension officers on the benefits of animal production and good animal husbandry techniques.  After these informative sessions, participants will be able to speak with local communities so they can pass this knowledge to smallholder farmers.  We assisted with Dr. Danquah’s presentation and spoke about the benefits and the different types of housing for poultry and small ruminants.  Our favorite part of the workshop was meeting with farmers in the communities and listening to their success stories and current challenges.

A presentation on animal husbandry to farmers at the Sabonjida community

After experiencing an initial adjustment period, we are now enjoying the vibrant Ghanaian culture: sampling local dishes, exploring the local markets, and learning a few words of the local language, Dagbani.  We are grateful for this incredible learning opportunity and are looking forward to what the next couple of months will bring!