My Internship at the Ark

Five days into my trip to Ghana, Justice escorted me to my soon-to-be office in Haatso, just outside Accra, to meet my soon-to-be Supervisors at the Ark Foundation, Ghana. I had no idea what to expect as I only knew very little about the organization: that it is a women's and children's human rights non-governmental organization, which is involved in providing leadership training for young women. Over these past five weeks I have come to know my organization as so much more...

My first few days (ok, weeks), took some getting used to. First of all, the work culture is completely different than in North America. When I first walked in, my supervisors told me just to sit and relax.... I would have my orientation later that day... so just sit. Ok. So I sat and tried to relax, but every bone in my body was screaming... you should be doing SOMETHING! So I tried my best to find some way to keep myself occupied by doing something useful... I glued newspaper articles onto backings.... fun. Luckily, after about an hour of feeling lost, my supervisor came in and told me I would be going to the court house that day to watch a high profile trial dealing with incest and defilement.... My day was turning out to be MUCH more interesting.

Foster, an Ark volunteer and my first Ark friend, hopped in a taxi with me and we headed into Accra to watch the trial. I learned two very interesting things that day. One, Ghana's justice system is SLOW - to the point I would say it often fails to serve its purpose. I say this because we watched several cases come before the judge in which men were on trial for petty crimes, such as robbery, which had been committed up to 12 YEARS ago!!! Several men had been in police custody for long periods of time with no proper trials, and often, with medical injuries which had not been treated. It was shocking. Worst of all - their trials were not dealt with that day but deferred yet again to future dates, meaning there is no end in sight for most of them.

The second interesting thing I noted was the lack of professionalism on the part of the lawyers. The case we were watching dealt with the sexual abuse of a little girl - obviously a very serious matter. But the lawyers on both sides were just laughing like junior high kids in sex-ed class whenever any 'adult' words were used. ... Unfortunately, despite a compelling argument from the little girl's lawyer, it looks as though the verdict will favour the accused man... an outcome which is strongly opposed by women's rights NGOs in Ghana, like the Ark.

So I started my internship off with a bang!... Then I was assigned my major project - a Gender Violence and HIV/AIDS training manual for a project sponsored by UNIFEM. The project involves providing training on HIV/AIDS, violence, advocacy and law for people living with HIV/AIDS and service providers such as health and social workers. So far the project has been interesting, and I have learned a lot about the HIV/AIDS issue in Ghana - especially in relation to women. For example - I was surprised to learn that three quarters of AIDS cases in adults in their 20s and 30s are women... and that sex workers in Western Africa have a prevalence rate of between 65% and 85%.... So while Ghana is hailed as being one of the more successful African countries in preventing the spread of HIV... obviously there is still a lot of work to be done!!

I also had the opportunity to travel to the Eastern Region to participate in the Ark's mid-year review meetings... by far this was the best experience I had at the Ark. The meetings were to review the activities of each of the units and programs within the Ark, especially their fundraising activities. I learned more in the two days of meetings than I have in the rest of my time in Ghana. The executive director, Angela, asked all the difficult questions of her staff, such as why they were not meeting targets and how they intend to raise enough funds to keep the organization operating into the future. Some of the major challenges and weaknesses of the organization definitely came out during those two days.

Also as part of the trip to the Eastern region I visited the Ark's shelter for abused women and children - the only one of its kind in the entire country. I met a lot of the kids and had some time to play with them! I also met the incredible women who run the shelter - the atmosphere they created there was happy and hopeful - so much so that I could feel it as soon as I set foot on the property. Unfortunately, the resources for the kids were a little scarce - they only had two sad, dented balls to play with :( .... so, as most of you know, I did a bit of fundraising during this past week to help support the kids at the shelter. Lucky for me, and the kids, I have incredibly AWESOME friends and family, and we raised almost $300 for the kids!! YAY!

So my time at the Ark has been very rewarding and an awesome learning experience.... the only question is, where to from here?!?! ... Working at the ark has definitely made me realize this is the type of work I want to be doing 10, 20 and 30 years down the road...