Empowering African Nations Since 1981

The positive benefit of collaborating with colleagues and Ghanaian institutions, government and private institutions, already familiar to IFESH is now clear to the volunteer educators as well. The volunteers' dedication has taken them beyond their original program assignments. For example, IEFA Volunteer Karen Washington, who is currently assigned to the St. Joseph's Training College, recognized that the inadequate water supply was directly linked to reports that 84,000 Ghanaian children have died of diarrhea over the past five years and that diarrhea is often caused by poor hygiene.

Due to the limited water supply at many of the schools and the prevalent use of latrines, there is often inadequate hand washing or none at all. At Washington's request, Doris Dartey, a cartoonist for The Daily Graphic Newspaper, created a cartoon explaining how to use the latrine correctly. Shukriyyah Aquil, her IEFA team partner at St. Joseph's, and Washington also started contacting hand sanitizer manufacturing companies to request their contribution and assistance for Ghana's hand washing campaign.

They hope that some of the companies will donate hand sanitizers to the schools as a small step in stopping the spread of germs until adequate sanitation facilities can be placed in all of the schools.