First day of the project with SISS

Today was the first day of our community projects. Originally my group and I were supposed to work with a vocational training school called Today’s Choices. This school took in girls that were victims of sex trafficking and taught them skills such as bead making, hair braiding, and sewing. Unfortunately, Today’s Choices was forced to close in the last month due to lack of funding. So today we started our project with a new agency called Self-Help Initiative Support Services (SISS). SISS is very similar to Today’s Choices. The fundamental difference is the girls in the school; most do not have sex trafficking in their background. The girls we are working with are girls that live in extreme poverty, but want to make a better life for themselves and their families.

We boarded the bus this morning to go to the agency. Three hours later we finally arrive, except that we weren’t anywhere near the agency, the bus dropped us off right outside of the worst slum in all of Accra. In fact, the slum is appropriately titled “Sodom & Gomorrah.” We were informed that to meet the girls we would have to walk 20 minutes into the slum. This was an intense experience. We drove through a slum earlier in the trip, but it was still nothing like I was seeing: stagnate water, people sleeping in the mud, children half clothed. My eyes couldn’t take in everything that was going on because I had to concentrate so much on where I was stepping.

Once we got to the building were the girls were waiting for us things got better. The girls were timid at first but warmed up to us quickly. Today we mainly focused on getting to know the girls and passing out journals and cameras. With the cameras we want the girls to show us life through their eyes and the journals will help them reflect on what we are teaching them. I was impressed with the questions the girls asked. They were curious about life in the US.

Also today we got the news that we would be moving hostels; the main reason being that there is no hot water. One of the girls here was admitted to the hospital for four days because she got Typhoid and many others have been getting sick. Our Professor believes that the lack of hot water could be causing some of the illnesses. So tomorrow I have to re-pack my bags to relocate. I’m a little sad about leaving because the people that work here have been great.