ProjectGROW

Lions & Tigers & Bears...Oh My!

Just kidding! But there were lots of goats and donkeys!! 

There are many adjectives we could use to describe the ProjectGROW day of celebration (long, hot, busy, loud) but the message we found most important was that of women empowerment.

Women; noun: an adult human female.

Empowerment; noun: the process of becoming stronger and more confident, especially in controlling one’s life and claiming one’s rights.

For those of you who don’t know, ProjectGROW was developed by Dr. Vida Yakong (UBCO alumni BSN, MSN, PhD) based out of Ghana.

GROW. Ghana Rural Opportunities for Women. A project that enables Ghanaian women to prosper because (as said so well by one of the guest speakers):

Dr. Vida 

 “Without woman, man is nothing”

The aim of this day is celebration-celebrate good times c’mon!- and it’s attended by an outstanding amount of women from the community, the Chief (Tindana) + Elders, the local government director, different personnel of Ghanaian health services, Dr. Vida herself and many more. As Canadian guests we received full VIP treatment and were introduced, applauded and thanked to a point we couldn’t even fully comprehend.

Gratefulness; adjective: warmly or deeply appreciate kindness or benefits received, thankful.

We have never been shown such admiration before and in our minds we only contributed in such a small way by means of fundraising back home. However, with the money raised we were able to provide 11 new goats (plus 31 returning goats) and 8 donkeys.  

No... not a petting zoo... a means of currency, nutrition, and labourers for carrying water and harvesting fields.

It was amazing to the extent of which an event like this makes a difference. Kids stayed home from school, women danced and screamed and sang, there was even NATIONAL broadcasting for this very successful project.

Support; verb: bear all of or part of the weight.

 

“Where are all the men?!” one speaker joked when talking about the need to support the women in order to make power moves for the community and it was true. The goals of the future are to get men more involved, but the support is present and increasing each year. We were in complete awe of everything we witnessed this day❤. The work put in and the bond built through Project GROW will propel this district forward and, if anything we learned here in Ghana, we hope we can take this example home and integrate it into our daily lives locally.

#Feminism; noun: the advocacy of Women’s rights on the ground of equality of the sexes.

By Victoria Jeffery and Sarah Langlois

4th Year BSN Students

UBC Okanagan