Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

The baskets were breathtaking. Even more so when we saw what the straw looked like before Monica split it (with her teeth), then soaked, twisted, and sometimes dyed, before weaving into a beautiful, and functional, work of art.

Monica, a widow and amputee, in Bolgatanga, Ghana supports herself by making and selling baskets. Because of her disability, she is unable to gather the straw needed to weave each basket and buys it from other women who collect it from nearby fields. 

It takes Monica four days to make each basket, which she then sells for 10 Ghanaian Cedis – approximately $8 US dollars. At the airport in Accra, I saw a similar basket for sale for $90 cedis.

Paul also weaves baskets. Unable to walk and with no means of supporting himself, he survived as a beggar before learning about and enrolling in the Anglican Diocesan Development and Relief Organisation’s (ADDRO) Disability Rehabilitation Program. Today, he supports himself and his family with the income he earns from selling his baskets and woven platters. 

Monica, Paul, and other adults with disabilities develop skills needed to support themselves through training offered by ADDRO. This training includes mastering income-generating skills such as basket weaving, farming and food production, carpentry, or tailoring. Once the training is complete, participants are eligible for seed money to help launch micro-enterprises along with instruction in business basics. The goal? To help lift people out of poverty by equipping them with the skills and training necessary to move out of subsistence and instead, claim a place in the broader marketplace through the sale of goods or services that will bring more resources into the household.

Every program we visited during Episcopal Relief & Development’s 2012 Study Tour of Ghana reinforces this approach. Young men who became deaf as the result of illness learn carpentry skills in a village in northeast Ghana. Teenage girls practice their sewing skills by stitching together paper garments, saving precious fabric until proficiency has been reached. Following their three year program, these young women are ready to take the national exam which will license them to set up shop as a seamstress, using microloans to purchase a sewing machine and supplies. In other communities, ADDRO partners with villagers on agricultural projects – teaching sustainable farming skills as well as ways to process raw ingredients such as groundnuts (peanuts) and shea nuts into products that will bring a higher price in the marketplace – and more resources to a family – than if they were sold in their ‘just picked’ state.

Life in Northern Ghana is hard. The countryside is dry and dusty in February, with small villages connected by dirt roads and paths beaten down by generations of feet crossing fields to reach the nearest well or the closest road. Women and children gather at ‘bore holes:’ children work the pumps to fill water containers while their mothers wash the families’ clothing in metal basins. As we drive along the road, we pass beautifully dressed women balancing heavy loads on their heads, often surrounded by small children. Men and boys coerce skinny mules to pull carts loaded with firewood or grain, while goats, cows, pigs, and chickens roam freely.

Life here is focused on the basics: food, shelter, raising children, maintaining health. At each place we visit, I am struck by a strong sense of community and the innate dignity of each person I meet. I sense a genuine partnership between the ADDRO staff and the people taking part in the programs. I see connections here - such as those between Monica and the people who gather the straw she transforms into her beautiful baskets or between the people who prepare the fields, plant and harvest the groundnuts and the others who transform these nuts into peanut oil, paste, or cakes and those who sell these products in the marketplace.

Witnessing these connections and transformations, I saw richness: the richness of community. What am I bringing home from Ghana? A sense of transformation and connection that I hope to weave into richer relationships in my own community.

* The Ghana Cedi or GH¢ is the unit of currency of Ghana