Journey for Change is a Future of Africa service-learning initiative that seeks to make a meaningful impact through community-based service, while also engaging, challenging, and educating participants by exposing them to a different reality.
In 2011, a Journey for Change team of seven Canadian students traveled to Ghana for eight weeks. The first portion of the trip took place in Accra, Ghana’s capital city, where participants were able to spend time observing and becoming accustomed to the culture, social norms, pace of life, and day-to-day happenings of Ghanaian society. The Journey for Change team also had the opportunity to meet with Ghanaian student volunteers to engage in discussions, which, enriched with local perspectives, created dialogue around the issues and challenges faced by underprivileged youth and explored the projected development of Future of Africa Youth Centres.
Upon departing Accra, the Journey for Change team commenced the service-intensive portion of the trip: a refurbishment project at Smile Child Foundation, a non-governmental primary school located in the village of Lolito (Volta Region). Smile Child Foundation was established with the aim of providing quality education to rural youth, but the school has unfortunately fallen into disrepair in recent years due to limited funding. Although there are future plans for new construction and expansion, Smile Child administration and the Journey for Change team chose, at this time, to prioritize repairing existing school structures.
Directed by the expertise of local tradespersons, tasks at Smile Child Foundation included: building bookshelves and renovating a storage area into a library space in anticipation of the arrival of a large donation of books, replacing damaged and deteriorating exterior classroom walls, patching and repainting the walls of the “community centre,” building dividing walls between the office, library, and classroom spaces, creating a new signboard, and repainting the majority of the school’s exterior. Participants also worked on smaller projects, such as observing and teaching in the classrooms, repairing classroom chairs, constructing soccer nets, creating a hand washing station, and building room dividers to enable the community space to be utilized for two additional classrooms during the upcoming school year. The Journey for Change team also dedicated a portion of each day to facilitating a Youth Centre program with the children, which consisted of arts and crafts, English literacy, computer skills training, and sporting activities.
In addition to the service project at Smile Child Foundation, the Journey for Change team also had the chance to observe and partake in a variety of traditional cultural activities. Lolito community members shared their traditional drumming and dancing, demonstrated clay pot making, fishing, and farming, and offered to teach the crafts of matt weaving and hat weaving. Participants’ daily interactions and relationships with both the school children and community at large also provided additional opportunities to learn about and experience the local way of life.
The final segment of the trip was reserved for travel and relaxation. Some wind down trip destinations that were visited included Mole National Park, Busia Beach, Akosombo Dam, Cape Coast Slave Castle, and Kakum National Park. Not only did this provide an opportunity to explore other parts of the country and various historical sites, but it also helped to ease the transition back to Canadian society by allowing participants time to wind down and to negotiate and reflect upon their individual service-learning experiences.