By Francis Ntow/Dorphina Ansah
Accra, Dec 24, GNA – CorpsAfrica, a non-profit organisation by a former Peace Corps volunteer, has announced its presence in Ghana with a community-based approach to solving developmental challenges in Ghana.
This comes after a successful implementation of the programme, which allows the young volunteers to identify specific problems together with community members and proffer local solutions to them in Morocco, Malawi, Senegal, Rwanda, and Kenya.
CorpsAfrica swore-in 18 volunteers in Accra, who would start their community work in 2023 by helping high-impact projects especially in rural and underserved communities in the Northern, Central and the Volta Regions of Ghana.
Mr Moses Cofie, the Country Director of CorpsAfrica Ghana, told the Ghana News Agency that though CorpsAfrica was not restricted to any sector, it was aimed at finding community problems in areas like health, education and agriculture and making the people, a critical part in finding solutions to them.
The project is supported with funding from CorpsAfrica’s development partners to ensure that the volunteers and people in the host communities become catalysts for change by facilitating sustainable development projects to improve livelihoods.
He said: “CorpsAfrica adopts a special approach to ensure community led development by focusing on people, understanding what their needs are, work on their minds and build their self-confidence to solve their own problems.”
“We bring our resources together as a community and before they realise, they’re solving problems, and we (CorpsAfrica) come in to give a little support to improve economic living in those areas.”
Mr Cofie also said that the experience that volunteers gained was transformative, which prepared them to become respected and recognised as promoters of sustainable development through a shift in the mind-set.
Ms Liz Fanning, the Founder and Executive Director of CorpsAfrica, said they would leverage on the experiences from the other African countries to build up the youth for a transformative community development in Ghana.
She noted that the volunteers had gotten the needed skills and qualities, which had made them develop “morals that no one taught them. We hope they share it with their communities and for the whole country to benefit”.
Madam Virginia Palmer, the Ambassador to Ghana for the United States of America, said: “I have seen first-hand the transformational power of CorpsAfrica in Malawi. How exciting to know that you now have the ability to improve livelihoods in Ghana, one community at a time. CorpsAfrica is a leading example of developing young Africans as change agents for their communities.”
The Local Council Chair of CorpsAfrica, Nana Kwasi Agyekum-Dwamena, who is the Head of the Civil Service, charged the volunteers to be worthy ambassadors, and cautioned them against portraying themselves as experts.
Accepting the challenge on behalf of the volunteers, Victor Togborlo, pledged that they would go into their respective communities with the aim of shaping the mind-set of the people for community-oriented sustainable development.
Since 2011, the Organisation has done over 800 community projects with more than 400 volunteers and impacted communities in Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, and Malawi, with Ghana as its new area for volunteer work.
GNA