Volunteer Liam Butcher, from Highams Park, was involved in a volunteering scheme in Africa from January until April this year.

Here he tells the Guardian of his experiences working with a pro-disability organisation in the upper eastern region of Ghana.

 

Before my stint of volunteering I was working in London and suddenly had the urge to travel and at the same time contribute to a worthwhile cause.

By chance I heard on the radio about International Service, a UK-based organisation which sends 18-25-year-olds to foreign countries to help their development projects.

I applied, and a few months later landed in Accra, the capital of Ghana. 

Immediately the culture shock hit me. The 18-strong team and I then travelled the 12-hour coach journey through the night to our separate towns where we would spend the next three months. 

My sub team finally arrived in Sandema in the upper east region after almost 24 hours of pothole ridden dust tracks and tro-tros (private mini-buses that are held together with gaffa tape and sport slogan stickers such as “Only God Can Save You”).

On our first day we walked to our office and met Maxwell Akandem, CEO of Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR). The LIFE project, twined with CBR was our project and its remit was to get disabled people more involved in the local community. 

We immediately got to work and decided how best to help LIFE.

A group of disabled women in Sandema had created a soap-making business in the hope that their profits would make them independent and self-sufficient. 

We helped the women make their soap and implement a digital database for better record-keeping.

We also organised an all inclusive football match between a blind school and an able bodied school which was one of the highlights of my trip.

We would travel into the field with CBR field operatives to help at health screenings. The disabled people found it hard to reach these places and we monitored toddlers for signs of impending disabilities.

We also compiled sexual health questionnaires and gave them to local schoolchildren to try and teach them more about contraception and good sexual health.

The three months sped by and I truly dreaded leaving the small village I had grown so attached to. The trip had taught me so much and made me want to strive down that path to help other projects in the future.

For anyone who wants to make a change and do some worthwhile groundwork, I would highly advise visiting www.volunteerics.org/ to apply for a three-month volunteering placement.

I will leave you with the amazing words of Maxwell Akandem: “If you fail to see the potential in the person but see only the disability, then who is blind?

"If you cannot hear your brother's cry for help and justice then who is deaf?

"If you cannot stand up for the right of all people, then who is physically disabled?

"If you cannot have the patience, the tolerance and understanding for individual differences, then who is mentally handicapped?”