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.