Literacy Bridge
I spent six weeks in Ghana between July and September of 2007. About five weeks were spent in the rural Upper West Region, researching the idea for what became the Talking Book project.
I’ve recently returned from my second trip to Ghana and its Upper West Region. This time, I was only there for two weeks; but it was an extremely packed and productive two weeks. The three main purposes of the trip were to: 1) get feedback from content authors and consumers about the latest plans for the project and specifically on the nonfunctional Talking Book device prototype; 2) make plans for an pilot program in August or September; and 3) find organizations to commit to producing audio content to be ready by the pilot and to distribute off-the-shelf digital voice recorders to allow them to get started right away.
In my first series of blog posts, I’m going to try to produce a “trip report” describing what I learned.
I’ll start here by offering a really high level executive summary:
- I was in Ghana for 13 days: arriving on Friday, 11 April and departing on Thursday, 24 April.
- The air travel cost was about $1300 (Amsterdam-Accra round trip – travel between Seattle and Amsterdam was covered by the ApacheCon conference that I spoke at).
- I spent a total of four days in Accra, the capital of Ghana. I stayed in a hotel for four nights + 1/2 day, at a rate of $25/day — very cheap by Accra standards. I met with NGOs, universities, governmental agencies, and the USAID mission at the US Embassy.
- I spent two days traveling between Accra and the Upper West Region, about 400 miles away. I caught a bus that cost $24 each way ($22 + $1/bag)
- I spent seven days in the Upper West Region: one day in its regional capital of Wa, and six days in much smaller villages and towns.
- During this week, I rented a car and driver for $200 (there was no option to rent the car alone, but Patrick, the driver, was extremely valuable to the project, in many ways — so it worked out well). I spent about $135 on fuel (typically costing about $5.28/gallon).
- In the Upper West, I stayed with a friend for two nights and paid $7/night for six of the nights at a camp-like location with a lockable room with a foam mattress plus easy access to a bore hole and room to take “bucket showers”. No plumbing or pit toilets; it’s usually “free range” in this area.
- I spent 2-5 hours in each of three small villages in the Upper West to discuss the Talking Book project and get feedback.
- I met with the faculty and students of the University of Development Studies in Wa and helped get students started creating audio content.
- I discussed the project with the District Chief Executive and with the education, health, and agriculture offices of two of the nine districts: Jirapa and Wa East. Another Literacy Bridge volunteer, Andrew Bayor, also began discussing the project with district offices in the Nadowli district. Andrew, Patrick, and I were able to get most of these offices set up with the hardware and software they needed to begin creating audio content for the pilot program.
- I also met with a local NGO named Rural Aide Action Programme (RAAP), which operates in the Jirapa and Sissala West districts. This is the same the NGO that hosted me during my visit in 2007 and was one of the organizations that inspired the idea that local organizations could reach many more people if the Talking Book device was designed to provide access to locally produced information/knowledge. RAAP also agreed to begin creating audio content for the pilot program using the digital voice recorder and software that we set them up with.
I’ll try to provide more detail about each of these items in coming posts.