Mad has built several toilet blocks and classrooms in the Volta region of Ghana but here are some of the highlights from the last 10 years...

In Ghana, we are supporting 12 villages which are in the Volta Region of Ghana. They are called Shia, Nyive, Hoe, Klave, Awiasu, Dogblome, Lume, Avee, Tanyigbe, Torkokoe, Hodzo and Atikpui. We are looking at building more classrooms and many more school toilets. We are also aiming to help renovate a number a children’s homes.

Clinic Liate Wote, March 2005

Health: giving an isolated community access to a local medical facility

Liate Wote is one of a small group of hamlets which lie to the north of the Volta Region in Ghana.

Mad Foundation has been active in the Volta region for over six years and has strong ties with many of the local communities. With no public transport and no vehicles in the community, medical emergencies in Liate Wote were often claiming lives and causing great distress; the day to day health of the community was also suffering as the journey to medical care was often physically and financially prohibitive.

The community approached Mad Foundation directly, the community chiefs and elders suggested that an old clinic, that had once been in use some years ago and was little more than a shell, could be renovated to a usable standard. This would hopefully attract a nurse to the village with the support from the local District Assembly who would be prepared to fund a nurse’s salary, should a suitable facility be available.

The village committee had already assessed the cost of the required materials and specialist labour for this project, having checked their proposal Mad Foundation agreed to try and help raise the £670 needed for the renovation work and the further £870 needed for basic equipment, a total of £1540. The community was keen to help in any way that they could and many people stepped forward and offered to provide free labour. The funds needed were raised from various sources, a generous donation was made by the Edward Vinson Charitable Trust.

A team of UK volunteers from Madventurer and a team of local people started work on the clinic early in March 2005. Having purchased materials from local suppliers and employed local skilled craftsmen for certain aspects of the work, rapid progress was made. As per plan, the shell as it stood was split into rooms to provide proper consultation and treatment areas, given new flooring, a new roof, windows and doors, plaster and paint.

Work progressed at a strong steady pace thanks to the commitment of all the volunteers involved.The final lick of paint was applied at the beginning of April and the community held a fantastic closing ceremony for the project and presented all the UK volunteers with a certificate in recognition of their contribution.

The village committee were able to confirm at the ceremony that a new nurse was to be funded by the District Assembly, we have since learned that this new facility and the new nurse has already helped save at least one life with emergency primary care.

Sokode Gbogame, Kindergarten 2011

In Sokode, MAD has built a double classroom and toilet block for the Children of Sokode Gbogame Kindergarten. This project was completed in February of this year, 2011. The foundation has also been supporting the Save the Widows Orphanage/ Children Home in this village. Volunteers have helped care for the children at the centre as well as teaching in the local primary school.

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Shia, Technical Block 2010-11

Community Project 1st May 2010 onwards...

Our 1st May 6 week project was in a village called Shia. The village is situated 25km east of Ho, the capital of the Volta Region. It has a population of 3000 people 70% of whom are under 18 years of age. The people of Shia are predominantly peasant farmers, although a few of them engage in cocoa and mango farming and petty trading. Before 1983 when bush fires destroyed 90% of their cocoa farms, the cocoa industry accounted for about 80% of the income of Shia inhabitants. The affected farmers are unable to rehabilitate their farms because of old age and financial constraints and the consequence of their reduced income is a huge constrain on the socio-economic development of the community.

Shia is approximately 4 hours drive north east of Accra. The village itself is on the Ghana-Togo border and is accessible by car. There is a well equipped clinic in Shia opposite the Secondary school which has a full time nurse although no doctor, with the main hospital being in nearby Ho. In Ho we run our more urban Madventurer medic, orphanage, teaching and sports coaching placements.

The people of Shia approached John Lawler in 1998, a gap year student taking time out in Ghana at the time for support, and Madventurer was founded a year later to help bring volunteers to the village. From 1999 through to 2004 there were a number of Projects completed which included a new kindergarden, public toilets, building and renovating classrooms in all the schools in Shia which focussed on health and education issues. Since then Madventurer has worked in hundreds of villages worldwide, but many of which are still in the Volta Region of Ghana, undertaking Projects of a similar nature.

The May 2010 Project has mark the return to Shia for Madventurer from where it all began, and this Projects which have been put forward by the village development committee to help renovate and resource a Computer Training facility, and also to build a new Technical Block for the Senior Secondary School, which will extend the educational focus of Madventurer into income generation projects. These will be used to train students at the Senior School in vocational skills which will enable them to find work after they finish school.

Project work

Before volunteers arrived local crew prepared the project build. Money was sent in advance to buy the materials needed to start the foundations to the new Technical Block, digging, mixing cement and binding wire with the masons, and generally helping out with all labour surrounding the Project site. Much of the block work was finished in the first phase of the Project with the remaining superstructure being finished by the next Project group. The technical building and the other older classroom blocks, having had a repaint this summer, are now finished. The school looked incredibly smart for it's official opening ceremony (with several speeches, and lots of dancing and singing lasting an entire day - true Ghanaian style!) this September, 2011.

The playground built by MAD volunteers in 2002 has now eventually fallen into disrepair and the ropes for the swings etc have been taken. As a side project at the Kindergarden it would be very useful to re-establish a playing area for the younger kids of the village and bring back this exciting facility.

This summer a classroom block in Lume School (in one of the NORDU villages MAD is supporting) has been renovated by groups of volunteers. Barrow School completed the ICT classroom and a group of young people from Sunderland School are completing the other classroom this in October 2011.