Ghana!!! ....Ghana????

Ghana is just down the road and over the creek and then a few thousand more miles away from Mongolia. Judith Hermanson, the Vice President of CHF was going to be there for a ceremony but illness in the family prevented her from making the trip, so the assignment was tossed over into my basket. CHF has worked in over a hundred different countries during its 55 year history and is currently working in 35 Developing countries.
In Ghana, CHF is engaged in implementing the Slum Communities Achieving Livable Environments with Urban Partners (Scale-Up)in conjunction with the Gates Foundation. This program provides targeted capacity building for local intermediaries. It is a program that seeks to empower the poor and give them a voice in the decisions that are made that influence their communities. CHF is providing resources to seven different community non-profit groups in Ghana in this effort to promote the Urban Agenda at all levels of decision making.
This young man, Habubakari, works as a program officer for Peoples Dialogue of Ghana, one of the seven local non-profits. Beside him is an elected official, equivalent to a County commissioner in the U.S. The Scale-UP program tries to bring every segment of the community into the dialogue.


Staff took me into the bowels of the slums and they were worse than anything I had seen in Haiti or South Africa. I had my camera in my hand but out of respect for the people, I could not bring myself to even sneak a picture.

The community ceremony was held at the outside edge of the slum where people had better living conditions, even if they were incredibly over crowded.
On a more upbeat note, the CHF staff of Ghana are a great group of folk and the ceremony came off without a hitch. The Corporate staff gathered for a group photo here on the right and on the left are four full time CHF staff. On the left is Sandrine Capelle-Manuel, who is the Country Director. Then next to her is Mathew Chandy, the Country director from India, where they are also working the Scale-UP program. Then you have Brian English, who is the Director for these two Scale-UP programs and works out of the Silver Springs office, and on the right is Ranjit Ambastha, a senior program director for India. These four have been working together for some time getting these programs going in Ghana and India.



CHF is addressing in many ways the same problem in both Mongolia and Ghana. The problem is the vast number of people moving from the rural into the Urban areas and their are no jobs. The program in each of the two countries is financed in different ways and the approach to the problem is radically different but the core problem is the same.
The problem CHF is addressing one way or the other in so many countries is an exploding urban population with no means of economic support. You have an increasingly massive number of people with a minimum, if any means of financial support moving into the urban areas. There are lots of people but there are very few jobs. This problem has been growing for years and will continue to grow even after the global economic crisis is resolved. The challenge to those concerned about the humanitarian needs of the poor is staggering.

LEAVING MONGOLIA

It was the last Saturday of March and I was wide awake before sun up. It was the 28th of March and I had a ticket to Ghana that afternoon. There was still some time sheets and work to do at the office before I finished packing so I decided to go over early and take care of the office stuff. It was a typical cold Mongolian morning but the wind was not blowing and the snow was coming down ever so gently. You could smell the coal being burned in the small stoves in the center of the Gers in Ulaanbaatar and I knew I was really going to miss being with the people I had enjoyed working with so much over the past three months.



Friday evening had been a lot of fun with the Development Solutions staff and their boss Serjmaa having a party for me in their new office and giving me a special Mongolian gift that I shall always treasure.

CHF had a 6 o'clock party and a few more gifts and lots of fun. Then Glenn and Brian, on their own nickel, took all of the staff of both groups out for dinner and drinks. In Mongolia you will find no CHF parties starting before 6 and you will find no CHF money being spent for party time, but the staff along with Glenn and Brian do have a lot of fun, even in the midst of major transitions in program as they go from USAID to USAG funding and the funding has very different expectations for services to be delivered to the Ger community.



One could say this group knew how to work hard and party hard but in the three months I spent in Mongolia, I never saw anyone of the staff get out of control with the partying. The staff are very competitive so when it comes to volleyball, basketball, and ping pong, the competitive spirit comes very close to getting out of control.

"The mission of CHF and the new non profit, Development Solutions, that has been spun off of CHF, are involved in very important work in this country. Less than 20 years ago, it was a part of the Soviet Union and sits right between the worlds two largest communist countries. It is a new Democracy rushing into an Urban environment and out of its Nomadic culture of herders raising their sheep and goats on the open range of Mongolia. Transition into Democracy and Capitalism have brought widespread joblessness and other social issues but the people are totally committed to making it work, so it is great the U.S. and CHF are doing what can be done to make it happen.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to get to know the wonderful people of Mongolia and to see up close and personal the terrific work CHF is doing in working with people in a country experiencing enormous social and economic transition in a very challenging and fragile environment.
I will miss a great deal the staff of Development Solutions and CHF in Mongolia and will always be appreciative of the energies of Barbara at CHF headquarters for facilitating the experience and to Mike for allowing it to happen.