Written by: Jette Krueger

Hi my name is Jette and I´m from a little town called Naumburg in Germany. After I finished school, I decided to take a gap year and go to Ghana to experience the culture and do voluntary work.  The African way of life was fascinating to me, which is how I ended up in an African country. My organization AFS Ghana placed me here at Elfacares Foundation Organization to work, learn and help. I´m very grateful to be here. 

Sebastian (another volunteer from Germany) and I already introduced ourselves to the office the week prior to the start of work. We live in the community around the office, so we can walk to and from work. In the first two weeks, we went through an itinerary to get to know everything and everyone. It was really interesting to visit all the different projects and some of the partner schools, like the Jerremite International School or the Victoria Solid Rock school. We were also shown around the three main communities Elfacares Foundation works with: Kisseman, Christian Village and Anumle. It was good to get to know our surroundings and the places that most of the kids in the projects come from.   

Everybody in the office was very nice to us. One task in the itinerary was to shadow two people to get to know their tasks and roles in the Organization. I was able to gain useful insight from this. While visiting the projects, the boys’ football team impressed me a lot. I think they play really well, especially compared to the regional teams I know from home. Wherever we went everyone welcomed us and made us feel at ease. The kids are often really excited, especially while visiting schools, little children come running up to us and hugging us. They often scream “Oburoni, Oburoni!”, which is a common term used for white people. 

After the first two weeks I started deciding which programs I wanted to join, attend or initiate. My first choice was the athletics program Fit4Fun. The atmosphere there and the way the training is set up just felt right for me. I also liked the idea of supporting a sports program and (sadly) football is not one of my talents. I was able to try myself at golf in the itinerary weeks and though it might be a lot of fun it is not the right project for me. Now that I have attended Fit4Fun for over two weeks, I know I made the right decision – I enjoy my time there a lot and the kids are just awesome. They are all really open and interested and just want to have fun together and power themselves out while still learning some basic athletic skills like long jump or endurance. I wasn’t able to avoid my bad football skills altogether because at the end of training there is always a football match between Girls and Boys and I am the assigned coach for the boy’s team. But it is a lot of fun and I often get help from a chosen assistant coach (one of the kids). 

I had to play football myself too in the Freiwilligen Cup, which was a great joy. The team spirit and being able to exercise the body while still having a common goal was very nice. The team of the German Volunteers lost, but I gained a good experience anyway on that day. 

In my first week at Elfacares Foundation, I heard about the possibility of doing a German Club at one of the partner schools. I liked the idea, so I started pursuing it. First, I contacted a previous volunteer who had already prepared and initiated the project. The school has a partner school in Germany so by teaching the kids some basic German and maybe telling them some little things about German culture, I hope to make the intercultural exchange better and easier. As the kids were already chosen and workbooks were available, the second step was to set time and date, which was decided upon Wednesdays after school. The third step was a session on how to prepare a lesson and class management led by the CEO. It helped me feel prepared for this journey. Lastly, I had to come up with a concept and then we were good to go. A week after our classroom management preparatory session the first German Class (led by me and helped by Sebastian) took place. It was a great success and I´m looking forward to many more nice lessons. Sebastian and I are also continuing the literacy project from previous volunteers (led by him and helped by me).

While going through the itinerary I visited the Dzi De Fo (Girls Club) several times and always enjoyed my time there. But I felt like the girls at Dzi De Fo were already well taken care of by the volunteers, so when I heard about the prospect of an Advocacy Club, I saw my opportunity of doing something for the girls and still being able to engage more of them. I drew up a concept and started recruiting girls from various projects and a partner school. The Advocacy Club will be twice a month and I hope to be able to guide the girls in some basic skills regarding presentation style, discussing and debating. I´m very excited to start this project. 

Since I’ve been here I have visited the beach once which was in relation to Elfacares Foundation as they had partnered with Mayekoo (a crowdfunding platform partner) for a beach clean-up. It was a nice morning, doing something for the environment while still being in the company of many Elfacares Foundation kids who were really engaged. In the middle of October, a trip to the Volta Region is planned to show Sebastian and I the projects and activities there. I´m really excited for this experience and seeing the impact of the Elfacares Foundation Organization in another region. 

I look forward to my time with Elfacares Foundation and hope I can experience many beautiful moments, learn a lot of new things and build great connections. 

Thank you for reading!