Welcome to my inaugural Ghana Cooperant Experience Blog.  As you can see in older posts in this blog, this blog picks up from my last cooperant experience which took place in Malawi in south-central Africa in 2008.  I am currently sitting in the lodging we are being put up in until we find our own accommodation in Accra, Ghana where we will live for the next 10 months.

The last few weeks (months) have been a seeming whirlwind of activity as we have juggled various tasks including our busy work lives, the need to pack up for storage everything we own and plan for moving overseas.   Janna (my wife) and I are both doing separate cooperant experiences in Ghana at different organizations for the same length of time.  What will be very different for us from our Malawi experience is that this time our daughter Regan won’t be coming with us as she is 19, almost 20 and is on her own adventure as she is doing her first semester of her third year at Queen’s University in Istanbul, Turkey.  We have just gotten back from a week in Istanbul where we helped get her set up as well as taking in some of the amazing historical sights that city has to offer.

We are extremely excited to be working in Ghana, but the last few weeks have been a little hectic so we are looking forward to finally arriving and getting settled.  Some of the challenges we have had over the last few weeks include having my work clothes (shirts, ties, pants, socks and underwear) which were packed in our Mountain Equipment Coop travel backpack stolen while we were loading a moving truck at our place, having my bike (which I was planning on taking to Ghana) stolen off of Bay Street two days before finishing work and getting in a minor car accident while driving a rental car in Istanbul.  Despite all of this everything has worked out fine in the big picture.  I was able to replace my clothing just before leaving, my boss at the Ministry of Labour, Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM) Kevin Wilson gave me an bike that he was no longer using for free and the car accident involved no injury and was covered by the rental company insurance.

I thought in this first post I would give a little background with regard to the situation that finds me writing a blog.  Thanks to supportive managers (ADM Sophie Dennis and ADM Kevin Wilson) at the Ontario Ministry of Labour where I work I have been able to take an unpaid leave of absence for the next ten months.  During that time I will be what is called a volunteer cooperant with the Uniterra Program, basically I will receive a stipend that covers my costs but I will not be making a salary while away.  This is the same as Janna and I did in Malawi but the difference this time is that we don’t have Regan with us.   The program we are sponsored under is called Uniterra which is jointly administered by two Canadian non-profit organizations, we are administered by the Ontario based World University Services Canada (WUSC).   I will go into more about the goals of Uniterra and WUSC in a future post.  My specific position will be with a local Ghanaian non-profit called the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), more on GNECC once I am placed with them which will happen this Thursday.

I will write more later, Janna and I are in the midst of orientation training with WUSC Ghana right now, and we have been having a great time exploring the city since we arrived last Thursday.

Jules