Football match: Braveaurora vs local village people

Nearly every day pupils of the Guabuliga schools play football on the field behind the school. Melanie had the idea to organize a football match with the local village people. At the Braveaurora meeting, Melanie mentioned the idea to the BA members. Everybody was delighted and looked forward to play against the home team. The idea was interesting to staff as some of them hadn´t played football for ages. :-)
The team of Braveaurora included some members of BA, the volunteers and some of the former orphanage children. The team was well dressed and had a great time :-)
Melanie organized water, a referee, 2 assistant referees , a whistle and a ball....let the match begin!!!
The match started at 5.00pm on thursday, 11th february. Everybody was motivated to win this match. Lots of spectators cheered for their favorite teams. The first goal was for the BA team, but unfortunately the local village people won 3:2......we did very well!
At the end everybody enjoyed the match, maybe there will be a return match to get a chance to beat the local village players :-)

Melanie & Jasmin

Trash Project - CLEANING THE MAIN ROAD

Last Monday, the 8th of February some pupils, local village people and the volunteers started to tidy up around the school and main road of Guabuliga. It is important to take the first step.
On this morning there was a BA meeting, all the staff members were motivated to help with the project.
Jasmin went through the classes to inform the pupils about the “project” after school -> HELP was needed. Melanie visited the community lead on the waste project- “Ziblim” the day before the exercise for discussions on how the activity will be conducted.  Big bags were organised to collect the waste.
After school around 2.30pm lots of pupils came together to support the exercise. Nothing succeeds like success. Many locals of Guabuliga joined the project. This afternoon was very successful and fulfilling for everyone. After a few hours, the school environs and the main road was spick and span!
Together with the children, the team burned the whole trash, it was a good day to show all the people especially the pupils the importance of cleaning up!

Melanie & Jasmin

Young Ambassadors Programme (YAP) at Banawa

On the afternoon of Friday, 29th January, the YAP took place in Banawa- a village in the  West Mamprusi District in the Northern Region of Ghana. We went together with three children at the ages of 16 and 17. They talked about their experiences through their family life and the joy associated with staying in their extended families. Also three adult members of the extended families joined us. Eklimatu, one of the social workers of Braveaurora introduced and explained the whole project and it's objectives to the people of Banawa. The programme seeks to inform the people about the negative effects of institutional care and giving away children to orphanages.

Later, an officer of the Social Welfare Department of Walewale arrived at the place and talked about the positive effects of reintegrating children into their (extended) families.

Lots of people (32 men, 7 women, 26 children)  from Banawa came to the meeting point and showed interest in the speeches of our staff members.


Volunteers: Jasmin & Melanie

                                                   Staff of the YAP and the Volunteers

Parents/ children meeting in front of the office

Parents meeting was on Monday, 25th of January it was good to get in contact with them on our first day. Eklimatu; a soial worker of BRAVEAURORA introduced us to the parents and they  introduced themselves.  They gave us an overview about the children they are taking care of. The only problem is that most of the parents aren't able to speak english because of their low education.
For this meeting 14 parents appeared.

Two days later there was the childrens meeting. The main topic for this meeting was about their education; attendance and grades in school. The kids are supported with materials for school for example books, pens and school uniforms. They have to explain why some of them aren't as good as their classmates. None of them could  give a good answer about this issue. Some of them are just not interested in school at all. The social workers keep trying to inform the children that it is important for them to attend school.

Volunteers Jasmin & Melanie