Tales from Ghana 2010: The Village Part 2

By Maire Tejani, Founder and  CEO of Yaarah Schools

Alex the local councillor  introduced us as customs demand, as the new people in villege to the senior chief and his elders in the first week.

This senior chief governs more than 30 villages in the local area including Aziedukope.  At the project site, work started with the foundations of the 3 new classrooms.  We also learnt that whenever there was a funeral in a village, the villagers and the neighbouring villages are very reluctant to do work.

This is the culture in this part of the country. Everything except the preparation for the funeral will be at stand still for at least a week.  Unfortunately for us within the 2 weeks that we were there, there were 4 funerals!  We actually managed to do some work by bringing additional workers from other villages and Accra to help withthe project work. This helped accelerate the progress of the work and the additional hands were wonderful. Read more >>

Russ runs Berlin Marathon for Yaarah Schools

When marathon enthusiast and newly appointed Yaarah School Trustee Russ Aziz told me he was going to Berlin to run a 26 mile marathon, I looked at him in confusion and asked ‘Why would you do that to yourself?’

He laughed and asked ‘Why not?’  I had many reasons to give him but to be honest it is not everyone that would run 26 miles in rain for themselves let alone for charity! Read more >>