Post 4: All Things EQWIP

Up until this point, I have withheld talking about the work I've been doing here in Ghana...

I've only been saving it because so much has been happening outside of work! I will say this though- The project is still in its infancy stages and is slowly yet surely building; however, I am hoping, through this special post, to provide a bit more information about what EQWIP HUBs is, what its end goal is, what has happened since arriving and where the project is currently at.

So what is EQWIP HUBs?

EQWIP HUBs is a new startup not-for-profit venture, established through a partnership between Canada World Youth (CWY) and Youth Challenge International (YCI), that aims to work on the empowerment of youth, especially women, through the expansion of employment opportunities. It is becoming a global network of youth innovation spaces spanning 17 developing urban centers in Bolivia, Ghana, Indonesia, Peru, Senegal and Tanzania that connect and transform the economic trajectory of youth through providing spaces where youth can develop employability and/or entrepreneurial skills needed to succeed in labor markets worldwide

The hubs act as an interactive classroom space. The way that we are currently trying to design it to be is to get rid of the traditional classroom feel and make it feel more like a place where youth can feel at home and can feel productive (both to learn and to innovate). Through a set curriculum on employment and entrepreneurial skills, we hope to be able to advance the youth participants today to be the business leaders of tomorrow's Ghana, whether they are running their own businesses or leading the Ghanaian labour force.

Best thing about EQWIP HUB Tamale: So much space to work with! This will look different in a month's time.

Why did it start?

Youth unemployment has turned into a global issue over the past two decades. Developing countries, like Ghana, bear the largest burden of youth unemployment since the majority of its population is young people  (So, when it is said "youth unemployment is 15%", the number of youth unemployed is a considerably higher number of people than in Canada).
Economically and socially, the lost formal sector workforce potential, due to youth unemployment, stalls future development and growth in Ghana because youth become forced to take positions in the informal sector (ex. street vendors, mini cash-based businesses). Most informal sector positions pay significantly less and are jobs which have little growth potential. For example, on every street in the city, there is bound to be two or three "convenience stores" for people to buy the exact same products. One can argue that competition is good for business and that the best salesperson wins; however, if every street in the city has these exact same vendors with the exact same products and prices then it is no longer healthy competition but instead redundant business making everyone worse off.
Another burden of the informal sector is that it is not regulated. There is no tax revenue coming from informal/unregistered businesses and it is impossible for government agencies to know the informal sector size/growth for outside formal industries to invest into and take over. The type of work we hope the youth will be doing is formal sector so that the amount of productivity they are able to create rewards not only themselves but as well impacts future generations.This is where EQWIP HUBs hopes to help.

Our target population is university graduates. The formal sector commonly only takes those with university degrees currently and while it would be great to open our doors to all we cannot force this to change. From our conversations with Ghanaian youth, a lot of youth, like in Canada, know a lot of theory about the work they hope to do due to studying it in school; however, outside of the classroom, they have never had the opportunity to gain practical experience not only in their field but as well within a formal work setting.

We are honestly quite lucky in Canada. Whether it is because many Canadians  are able to start looking for part-time work at 16 years old to gain practical work experience (even if it is making Big Macs at McDonalds)  or because we have courses in school such as "Careers and Civics" (which I bet many of you thought was a useless course), these opportunities do not exist for many here in Ghana. Even one's parents are unlikely to teach the youth the important formal work skills because they themselves never worked in the formal sector. In Ghana, gaining practical work experience really comes from being lucky enough to get a job. If one is not taught the proper work etiquette and skills prior to being hired, not only are they less likely to advance and succeed in the workplace but they are as well  more prone to termination (for example, employees cannot work in the Ghanaian time mindset and be late).

                

We want to start helping Ghana transition away from having communities unfamiliar with the etiquette and rules of formal labor sector to becoming familiar. As the first cohort sent here, it is our job to set the groundwork for future volunteer groups to succeed. We are the ones who are adapting the curriculum, designing the hubs, advertising and launching the programs and trial running how this project will go. It is important to note that the Canadian presence in this project will be only for 5 years. Through capacity building, it is our goal for EQWIP to continue but under the guidance of local partner agencies who will be taking over the hubs. Throughout the five years, our goal will be to make sure that the partners are ready.

The EQWIP HUBs Global Goal:

Have over 100,000 youth impacted through our 17 global hubs by 2020 (about 1200 youth annually per hub).

Current Progress and EQWIP HUBs Tamale

                

The EQWIP HUBs Ghana team is unique to the rest of the hubs globally as we were one of the first groups to arrive at our locations. In Tamale, we believe our hub is currently the most progressed since other volunteer start dates worldwide ended up being later than ours and for steps in the process, we are always the first to reach it in comparison to team Accra ;).

                

The first major step in launching the hub occurred back in Accra. Over the course of two weeks, local youth, EQWIP staff, and heads of our partner organizations  came together to adapt the curriculum. Our curriculum was originally created by an American non-profit Educational Development Center (EDC). EDC made a great curriculum; however, a lot of the content within it was not applicable to Ghanaians (ex. the pictures, proverbs, and examples) and required changes. Chapter by chapter, we went through the modules and made all the necessary changes so that Ghanaian youth would get the most out the curriculum.

A shot from our field research day with Ghanaian youth

Upon finishing the adaptation stage, myself and two other volunteers were finished with our tasks in Accra and were sent up to Tamale where we were to begin working with our partner organization the National Service Secretariat (NSS). Did you know all university graduates in Ghana are legally required to do one year of public service for the country? This year of service for graduates is federally mandated as a means to use the country's brightest to develop its poorest regions. Graduates are placed to work on development related projects across the country to help develop living standards across Ghana through fields such as education, sanitation, and health. From what we've seen, many students are not entirely thrilled with having to do a year of service, especially when they have to move from the larger cities into rural areas; however, it is our hope and the partner's hope that this additional training will entice the youth doing their NSS year to be more open to opportunities within NSS and to grow as future leaders of the country.

                

In the two weeks we've been here in Tamale, a fair bit has been done. We have completed field research by interviewing the NSS youth in regards to what they would like the future hub space to look like and what expect from us in regards to the program itself. From these interviews, we have developed a design plan for the space! We are currently in the process of getting quotes for the prices of the items/supplies we will need to make the hub the best of all the EQWIP HUBs and are now preparing to start renovations!

I am hoping, in posts going forward, to always include a little space on the project's progress. We are hoping to officially open our hub by mid to late January. The next month will be building the hub and preparing it for opening day.               

So much is about to change for this little building here in Tamale!

Post 3: Welcome to Tamale!

The day was November 21st, 2015... Well... At least we thought it was.

                 

The time had come for me to move up north to my new home in Tamale. I had realized, after looking at the boarding gate screen, it had been a month since I left Canada and it was officially the longest I had ever been out of the country. It was a small moment of victory; after all, while the timeframe is considerably small, many expats say the first month is always the longest. It's the time where a person's body experiences the most shocks, the most"mini heart attacks" occur, and the largest adjustments begin to occur so one can get used to the new place he/she calls home. 

After an hour wait on the runway, the pilot came on apologizing and canceled the flight due to visibility issues in Tamale. What caused the flight to be canceled? Harmattan. Due to being in a close proximity to the Sahara desert, Tamale experiences extremely hot and dry weather from November to March which includes dust storms coming from the Sahara. This makes it difficult to nearly impossible sometimes for flights to come in and out of Tamale, since the runways don't have lights. Luckily, it was only a one night delay and I arrived in Tamale the next day. 

My first thought about Tamale:

"Wow.... thing are about to be a lot different"

Shout out to Catherine for taking these awesome shots!

As we were landing into Tamale, the window visual of the grounds below me made me instantly believe that not much in Accra prepares one for Tamale.



For many in Ghana, to live in Accra stands as a sign of status of the Ghanaian lifestyle and many people work to someday leave their hometown and work in the capital city. In Tamale, gone are the houses upon houses that littered the grounds of the Ghana I once knew. Greenery no longer filled in all the gaps of the ground absent of buildings and roads. Replacing this was miles of dried-out lands, with small circles of mud huts and trees dabbed into the remaining bare areas on the ground. Farms were scattered across different plots of land and roads were few and far between, mainly made of red dirt. Not once could I spot the city which is projected to have 300,000 to 500,000 inhabitants living within it. I could not figure out why and I began to wonder what I was about to land into.

By the time we began making our way into town,  it was during the cycle of the day. As the sun disappeared into the world below, the moon began to be the Diamond in the sky with the multitude of gems surrounding it. Due to the Harmattan, a veil of dust was making a smoke-like haze which covered the night's sky. The style of life we were witnessing as well changed. Motorbikes ruled the roads in place of cats and tro-tros and electricity was seen scarce and far between. As we drove into town, there was one main thought on my mind and it wasn't disappearing...

"This is the Africa I have always dreamed of seeing"

It's true! A dream of mine came true that night and it has been a tiring yet positive week and a half since arriving. My first task: finding a host family. While I'll likely be speaking a lot about them going forward, I'd like to give you a quick glimpse of the family I am staying with. The family comprises of a mother and four kids. Two of them are her own (a 21-year old boy named Arafat and a 12-year-old girl named Iba) and the other two are volunteers from Belgium, Merel and Michiel. While there are a few amenities I am lucky to have in my house (running water and electricity) our living style is quite simple and has made me start to question the things I need in life versus the things I want in life. More about this another time... let's keep talking about Tamale!

The courtyard of my new home in Tamale (with an awesome mango tree in the middle)

For a city of 300,000 it seems quite small

There are a few things I love about here. The first is the uniqueness of the city. For such a large and highly-regarded city (3rd largest in Ghana), I was immediately surprised by how small town it seemed! Being from Sarnia and going to school in Ottawa, I learned to love places that are big cities with a small city feel. Whether it's the hustle and bustle throughout all the alleyways of the local market or the livestock infused communities inside and outside of the downtown area, I can honestly say I have never seen a place like Tamale in my entire life.

How religion is practiced here is another thing I have immense respect for. While a majority of Ghanaians are Christian, this is the one area of the country where the majority are Muslim. What I love about here is that there is a unique cosmopolitan community of Christians and Muslims that allows for mutual respect between people of both faiths. There are citizens here who, either based on marriage or personal choice, convert or interchange between both religions. It is not uncommon to see a Christian and Muslim marry. It is the belief in a higher power that both sides realize matters the most and while some call a higher being Allah or God, the respect towards people of both faiths is the same. It is incredible seeing this, especially in the world we live in at present.

Tamale is considered to be the non-profit organization capital of Ghana. The city is evidentially poorer than Accra; however, I like it more for that reason. Everything in Accra seemed unequal. There was the very rich and the very poor and little in between. In Tamale, while it appears to be the same across the board in most areas, the city is not in stalemate but is growing, as some people argue, at one of the fastest paces in Western Africa. The potential for this city is visibly evident. We can talk about untouched economic potential being the main selling point for businesses but I instead look at the major selling point being more because of the people and their untapped potential. The international community of non-profits would likely agree with me on that. In fact, the airport is currently under renovations (sponsored by the Brazilian government)  to make Tamale the second international airport in the country so it can be easier for more people to come to Tamale and help its citizens develop this beautiful city.

Looking back on the previous week, I think the way I would sum it up is the "week of firsts".  I was realizing for first time that is the longest I had stayed or lived in another country, experienced my first cancelled flight,  lived in or even traveled to a Muslim city, tried rice balls and groundnut soup (my new favourite Ghanaian dish), saw something that really hit close to home, finished my first book of the trip (The Book Thief),  had a bat poop on my shoulder, and heck, it was the first time I ever had a cat jump into my food! Through all of this, I can finally say I feel at home and situated. I feel that while there are some cultural barriers still to adjust to, I am well on my way!

Final Note:

Some of you may be wondering "Aren't you supposed to be working on this trip?". While I've been working since week one, I have not been discussing the EQWIP HUBs project not because of there being no updates but due to the fact we are at such a primary stage of the project and so much has happened outside of work that has overshadowed work related news. Don't worry though, to make up for it, I am writing a bonus blog post next week! This will explain a bit more about EQWIP HUBs, the goal in mind for the initiative and where we are at in the project. Till then cheers to the week ahead!