Ghana Gazette, 14th July 2001
Greetings from Ghana! Thanks for all your e-mails and text messages - it's great to hear from you. We're now at the end of the second week of our trip. Last week we met women in Cape Coast with an organisation called CRAN - Christian Rural Aid Network. This week we travelled to the capital Accra and up to Kumasi to meet women in Sinapi Aba (which means Mustard Seed)
CRAN were interesting for their village banks - small brick built buildings where people deposit their savings and pay off their microcredit loans. What impressed us was the location of the banks - right in the heart of the working communities: in the middle of the markets and mechanics' yards, in remote villages and busy ports. For the women, the buidings are a sign that their money is secure. Previously, they relied on Susu collectors - individuals who'd keep their money for them, charging them one days savings for every 30 days saved.
Whereas CRAN support their clients on an individual basis, Sinapi Aba work mainly with women in groups, a little like WEETU's Full Circle project in Norfolk. Here, the groups are between 25-40 people and are called Trust Banks. In Norfolk we meet in groups of 4-6 women and they are called Lending Circles. Like us, the Sinapi Aba groups are self-selecting and think of their own names. They choose names like Happiness, Humility and Lean on the Lord - mainly on a religious theme. In Norwich we have names like the Norfolk Broads!
The women continue
to enchant us with their friendliness, stamina and vision. They challenge
us as filmmakers because it is hard to know where to put them in the frame.
Usually I position people at the side of the picture for interviews. These
women I have to put in the centre: as they talk about their businesses
and their plans to
expand, their arms stretch out and they fill the space around them.
We've had lots of invitations to come back - they want us to return in a couple of years to see how they have progressed. We would love to come back - to see the new market that the traders in Abeka are building with the money from their collective loans; to sit in Theresa's tiny cafe, extended and carpeted, with new tables and chairs; to count the number of ice-cakes Cecilia can produce with her new machine.
And now for the tourist bit. We've been spending our days off in the National Parks. Last weekend it was Kakum to walk the "canopy walk", a series of 7 rope bridges suspended in the trees high above the rain forest. One of Ghana's top tourist attractions, it feels like it: with only one person allowed on each bridge at a time and with crowds of people waiting behind you, you have to be quick, so there's no time to enjoy the view. This weekend it was Mole National Park where things are much quieter. We've been staying in the motel which is on a cliff above a watering hole. We've seen elephants, antelopes, warthogs, waterbok and a baboon who walked past us whilst we were eating lunch. On his way, he stopped to take a sip of water from the swimming pool!
That's it for this
week. We'll write again soon with the third
and final instalment of the Ghana Gazette.
On The Line was founded by Oxfam GB, Channel
4 and WWF-UK and is registered charity, number 1073841
For
more Ghana Gazettes, click below
Ghana Gazette 7th July
Ghana Gazette 21st July