Our Guabuliga at a glance

Dear Braveaurora & Friends

We are here now for four weeks - time is running - and we are really enjoying our lives in Guabuliga! We already got used to the village and the life in the village - this small village has many things to do and see! And I will give you an overview about 'our' Guabuliga!

our compund from outside - you can see three little houses, in which we are living

 one of our ways to Mister Jo

 our vehicle of trust - Motorking! 

On the market days you can take a ride to Walewale with a Motorking or you can rent it as a taxi! And you won't believe how many people and other stuff you can carry with one Motorking.

 one of the petrol stations in town

 

 our telephone mast - which is really important for having contact with the whole world around Guabuliga - most of the time he is good to us!

 The Hospital. Once a month the hospital is opening it's doors for small children. On all the other days and all other people have to go to the hospital in Walewale.

 the mobile phone / electronic store

  beautiful landscape around Guabuliga

 one of the churches in town

 the main shopping and market road

 one of the grounds for playing football - there are many

our water tank in front of the compound - unfortunately it is not working at the moment.

I tried to show you some of our points of interest in Guabuliga!

Take care and have a good time,
ariane

'Do you want to marry me? '& 'Suleminga, how are you?'

 (the two most asked questions (in our first three weeks of our stay) in Ghana)

Dear Braveaurora-friends!

My name is Ariane and I am a socialworker from Austria. I just passed my final exams of the master program in social work, social politics & social management in Innsbruck and since 3 weeks I am in Ghana, to work as a volunteer for Braveaurora. I am here with another austrian girl, called Katja! Katja quitted here job in a big fashion company to work as a volunteer for Braveaurora. She is a professional taylor and an expert for re- and upcycle processes. We didn't know each other before we came to Ghana - but I am positively surprised. I waited for Katja in Accra for starting together the journey to the North, to Guabuliga.

 Our first pure water bag experiences and our new friend at the makola market in Accra

How to come to Guabuliga? We got a more or less easy explanation and we tried our best to obey the instructions. Do not travel during the night!!! We started our tour at 10am with a six hour waiting period for the bus, but nearly on time at half past 4 we started the ride with the night bus to Tamale! We succesfully disesteemed the first advise. But we didn't want to stay one more night in Accra. Everything went good – we arrived Tamale at 2.30am and we got a cab to our guesthouse. There are some postive outcomes because of the waiting time – we were able to start our first upcycle project - crocheting balls with plastic bags. And we got a couple of proposals of marriage, telephone numbers and e-mail adresses. 

at the bus station in Accra

On the next day we wanted to visit the market in Tamale, before we arrived anything 2 men invited us to their family for sharing lunch with them. Why not. After a freshly slaughtered goat with rice and spicey tomato sauce we drove to some other places with the two guys. Do not enter a cab or a car, where two guys are sitting inside!!! Disregard number 2. And here I am coming directly to number 3. Stay at home or in your guesthouse, when it is dark!!! Darkness is coming quickly here in Ghana – so we didn't manage to be at home before sunset. The list is even longer, but I will stop explaining our mistakes. As you can see, probably improvement potential exists! But we are not sure if it is necessary, because we only made good experiences. But we are sure, that it is important to be careful! 

at the family compound in Tamale

 

In Tamale we got to know Saibu, the local manager of Braveaurora and Alhassan, the education coordinator. We aggred to go togehter with Alhassan to Guabuliga on the next day at 6am. To make sure that we are on time we ordered a cab at 5am. At the bus station we were waitng till 6am to get to know that the planned bus shortly after six won't come this morning. So we changed our plan and tried to get another car to Walewale. At around 8 we got a car and started our ride with 22 other passengers in a Minibus. On the road the police tried to stop us, but our driver wasn't willing to stop. So the police had to follow us. Finally they stopped us and asked the driver to drive back to the control point where the tried to stop us before. The police was not amused about the driver's attitude – so they didn't allow him to drive further. Another two hours of waiting later a new bus came and we were able to continue our way to Walewale. There Alhassan organised a Motorking for us and our luggage to go to Guabuliga. At around 1pm we finally arrived Guabuliga! It took us around 8 hours to come from Tamale to Guabuliga. (around 130km)

'Suleminga, how are you?' - The first sentence we heard in Guabuliga, and also the most asked question. Nearly every child tries to ask us how we are, every day.

In the volunteers compound we got the keys for our new house and we were really happy to be here. Everything was new and exciting and it was hot. Well, it is still hot, but we are here now for nearly two weeks and we are on the best way to acclimate of course to the climate but also to the village, the culture, the people, the food, the noises, the greeting ceremony and to all the other new things. We are both really fine and enjoying the time and all the great new experiences.

I started to work with the local socialworkers and the education coordinator and Katja started to support the people in the training center.

 

 Young Ambassador Programm in Timpela

 work in the trainingcenter

Soon we will let you know more about our work and our lives here in Guabuliga.

We stopped counting our marriage proposals. We already got many during our journey to the North and also in the village there are loads of men, who want to marry us! The most funniest proposal was in Accra, when two policemen stopped with there motorbike next us, just for aksing, if we want to be their wifes. Maybe we are going to collect them all till the end of our stay and then we will celebrate a huge marriage with many husbands.... We will see :-)

we at Mister Jo's - the best bar in town, while listening to 'Mono and Nikitaman' and 

'Die Toten Hosen' (Vielen Dank dafür, Severin!!)

Best regards,

Ariane

visitors in Guabuliga

Dear Braveaurora-Friends,

The last weeks kept running and yesterday a group of students from the University of Applied Science, studying "Social Work", arrived with Sarah, one of the boardmembers. They are going to stay in Guabuliga until Saturday in order to get known about the projects of Braveaurora.Today Chief welcomed them at his palace and we used the opportunity to say good-bye to him, because we are leaving the village tomorow after our twelve-week internship.

We would like to use the opportunity to say "Thank you" to all Braveaurora- staffmembers and especially also to Sarah, who supported us during our stay here.


Katharina and Sarah

evening lesson

Dear BRAVE AURORA friends,

Since six weeks we (Sarah & Katharina) are offering from Monday to Friday evening-lessons. The adults from Guabuliga have there the opportunity to learn basic english - for example: about the colours, numbers, greetings, animals, fruits,... 

We have been aware about the rainy season and the fasten time for the Moslems, but it's now the time, we are doing our intership. The result out of this challanges is, that only two women are attending our class, but they really enjoy it, come regularly and learn a lot.

 

Greetings from Guabuliga,

Katharina & Sarah

training centre

Dear BRAVE-AURORA- friends,


today was the first meeting for the training centre. The teachers for the selected participators intruduced themselves and talked about their business. The pupils are going to learn (in groups) about tailoring, hair-dressing, soap-making and tie and dye.

The BRAVE AURORA-team, the teachers and the selected participators in front of the training centre.

The selected participators:

The teachers:

Greetings from Guabuliga,
Katharina & Sarah

Young - Ambassador - Program

Dear BRAVE AURORA - friends,

once a week the sensitization about orphans, called "YoungAmbassadorProgramm", takes place in Guabuliga. Six orphans and six parents were selected as ambassadors and learnt a few weeks ago how to speak in the public. Now they have already visited the six areas of Guabuliga to speak about the reasons why family care is better than orphanage care and they shared their own experiences with the community. In the next weeks and months they are going to visit other villages around Guabuliga in order to spread the massage. 

Right now the BRAVE AURORA-Team is also busy preparing the training-centre programs, which are going to start in the next few weeks. We are going to tell you about the news then. 

Sarah & Katharina

internship in Guabuliga

Dear BRAVEAURORA-friends,

Since the 27th of May, we (Katharina & Sarah) are staying in Guabuliga and doing our internship here. We are both from Austria and studying together at the University of Applied Science 'Social Work' in Linz. Our internship is going to end in the middle of August, so there are only a few weeks left for staying at this beautiful place. The first weeks have been full of emotions and new impressions, but now we have both the feeling that we have arrived.

Like you see on the picture, we try to discover the northern part of Ghana on the weekends. 
From Monday to Friday we are working in Guabuliga with the two social workers, Madam Suzie and Madam Eklimatu. Part of our work is to visit the reintegrated orphans at their homes and to look after their wellbeing. We take part on different BRAVEAURORA-projects, like the Young-Ambassador-Program or the trainings-centre and help where we can. Every day in the evening we offer basic-english-lessons for the adults from Guabuliga. It is also really interesting to get in contact with other organizations, for example the Department of Social Welfare in Walewale and to discuss different topics. So you see, we have a lot of things to do... :)

Bye for now,
Katharina & Sarah

BRAVEAURORA: Small Moves – Big Change

BRAVEAURORAs history started in summer 2008. Sarah Ebieshuwa, Tamara Pottfay and Julia Weberbauer came to the community of Guabuliga, in the Northern Region of Ghana, to do their internship in the orphanage. Live for the children in the orphanage was shocking: there was not enough food, they did not attend school and sicknesses like malaria and typhoid were common.

The three students sent E-Mails to their families and friends and asked them for support for the 45 orphans. They received many donations and were like this able to satisfy the basic needs of the children. Through this E-Mail also Christin Forstinger became aware about the situation I Guabuliga, and together these four ladies founded the NGO BRAVEAURORA, which was registered in 2009 in Austria and Switzerland.

This happened 5 years ago – and many things were archived during this time. To really show the donors what happens on the ground, a short movie (about 30 minutes) was shot in Guabuliga – and each employee has some time to talk about his/her involvement into the project. BRAVEAURORA wants to thank all donors for their donations and trust over the years. The movie can be watched here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0cbZGYh8vk

We are always happy to get feedback and want to thank all donors once again – without your support all this would not be possible! Only if this support continues, we are enabled to continue to work in the community of Guabuliga! Thank you very much!

For more details please see our homepage: www.braveaurora.com

Christin, Julia and Sarah

Volunteer Business

Dear Friends of BRAVEAURORA!

Again it has been a while since the last post. We hope that all of you had a good start into a successful year 2014!

Today we want to share a link with you for a short movie about "volunteer business". Unfortunately it is only available in german language.

http://www.ardmediathek.de/das-erste/panorama/abiturienten-als-entwicklungshelfer-sinnlose-kurztrips-ins?documentId=18751184

Also in the north of Ghana there are many people who make business with volunteers...and these "volunteers" often make the situation worse while they come here to do something good.

The more people know about these things, the less likely they are to continue! Please help us to share these news!

Kind regards from Guabuliga, Severin