Clothing Designer Launches Kids Line for Project OKURASE

A recent article, published on mydailyfind.com, highlights the work of Jodi Lee Middleton and her ‘Sandbox Rebel‘ children’s clothign line. Jodi has agreed to partner with Project OKURASE in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Ghana and is doing amazing things to support the women and children in the village of Okurase.

Jodi is designing a line of clothing made completely from native materials of Ghana, including recycled rice and flour sacks. Proceeds from the line, which is set to launch in Los Angeles in November, will go towards creating jobs in the Nkabom Centre of Okurase.

International Service Learning Alliance has officially opened their Ghana Program with Project OKURASE.

Project OKURASE offers several ways to give, including volunteering your time to go to the village of Okurase in Ghana and help in many ways. We are excited to announce that the International Service Learning Alliance (ISLA) is now making this process easier and more efficient. Those interested in doing so can apply with ISLA to volunteer or to complete an internship with Project OKURASE.

As ISLA appropriately notes, “Because our earth is an island that we must learn to live on, in peace. Because together we are stronger and better.”

Project OKURASE to be Featured at Whole Child/Whole Planet Expo

Falling on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, the Whole Children, Whole Planet Expo will take place on April 24, 2010 at Highland Hall Waldorf School in Northridge, California from 9:30 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. Project OKURASE will be featured as we teach some of the skills we will be teaching in Okurase such as textile design and drumming. We will sell our product at the expo, which generally hosts 3500 people with a celebrity presence. The chair of the advisory board is Ed Begley, Jr. The Expo is run by Kathy Arnos. See what Kathy has to say in her recent blog.

In early 2005, Arnos created and began producing the Whole Children, Whole Planet Expo, a premier natural parenting and family expo that introduces attendees of all ages to the benefits of natural products, organics foods, natural medicine, enrichment learning programs, sustainable living practices and important health and environmental issues. The first WCWP Expo was held at the Los Angeles Convention Center over Earth Day weekend in 2006.

Currently, Arnos also produces and hosts an internet-radio show – Eco Family News on “I Am Healthy Radio” – as she continues to write freelance for several on-line and in-print publications. She also sits on the Advisory Board’s for California Safe Schools, Holistic Pediatric Association, bluedominoes.com, and the San Fernando Valley Green Team. Arnos leads the K-12 Environmental Educational Task Force for the Team, and has been named the Environmental Special Projects Coordinator for Northridge East Neighborhood Council.

Results of Clemson Brick Research Are In

Today was a meeting I never imagined in my life I would have. Denis Brosnan, who is a national expert in brick research with Clemson University met with me and Fred Taylor to give us the results of the research on the compressed earth bricks we are making in Okurase.

From my last trip to Ghana I brought back several bricks and all the materials to make a couple of bricks. Denis and his team conducted research on all materials and completed bricks to help us determine if we are going in the right direction, to understand the strength of the bricks and make recommendations for improvement. He reassured us that we have a fine product in our bricks and that one brick would support 30,000 pounds! WOW!

He gave us suggestions on improving the bricks once we start to take them beyond Okurase. He also gave recommendations for safety as inhaling fine particles of dirt can affect breathing safety.

We are extremely grateful to Denis and his team for helping us to this extent. This research will greatly impact our way forward. It is a fantastic gift to the people of Ghana. Medaase Denis!

Submit your Vote for Solar Sisters!

The Barefoot College in India is one of the 12 finalists for the BBC World Challenge. Bunker Roy, the founder has written to us and asked us to vote for Solar Sisters. We ask that you forward the link on to your friends and family and vote yourself for this amazing project.

The link is
www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/index.php

The Barefoot College in India is teaching women who are illiterate to become solar engineers. They are making solar lanps, solar panels, solar cooking stoves, etc.  They have graciously extended their training to women from Africa. It is truly phenomenal that they can teach women from different cultures who speak different languages by doing non verbal instruction. We have started talking with Bunker Roy, the founder about how Project OKURASE in Ghana can somehow link with the Barefoot College in India as we are headstrong to move solar energy forward in Ghana. Bunker is very approachable. We are making an MST (Multisystemic Therapy)  trip to India later this month and will be meeting up with Bunker and visiting Barefoot College. Who knows where it will go. Please keep us in your thoughts.

We will be starting a fruit drying cooperative of women from Okurase and Tamale (in Northern Ghana) probably in December. It would be great if we could use solar energy in this venture!

-Cindy

Stitch Joins the Family

We welcome to the Project OKURASE family Tricia Waddell, the editor of Stitch Magazine. The kids of Djole are already referring to her as “our editor”.  Stitch will publish a story on Project OKURASE’s sewing centre, called Rhion’s Sewing Centre, and it is due to come out in April. Stitch is a beautiful magazine with articles on step-by-step procedures to make clothing and accessories. The publication has an international readership of 80,000. As someone who doesn’t sew but who had a grandmother who sewed my whole life, I am quite taken with this magazine and recommend that you view a copy. Tricia visited us in Charleston this weekend and is truly wonderful. That she would fly to Charleston to spend time with us and spend hours and hours talking about Project OKURASE is amazing to me.

MEDAASE Tricia!

No matter your age, you can make a difference too

Waylon and Sandy Henggeler just celebrated their 13th birthday! These extraordinary twins decided that instead of accepting birthday gifts from their friends they would help children struggling with serious challenges in life. They decided to make the children in Okurase, Ghana the focus of their birthday. Together Waylon and Sandy (also known as Santos) raised $365! Here is how the money will be spent…… Girls who do not have an opportunity to go to school because they do not have school uniforms will have uniforms sewed for them. The women of Rhion’s Sewing Centre in Okurase who are sewing to earn a living to care for their own children will sew the uniforms. This means that the benefit of Waylon’s project extends to vulnerable girls and women.  Sandy’s project addresses the children of Ghana’s love for soccer (called football in Ghana). But the boys who love soccer in Okurase have not had the opportunity for this wonderful team sport because there was no equipment. Sandy’s project raised the funds for soccer balls and goals. Now the boys in the village can experience the team work and camraderie that happens with soccer. Sandy’s Project has extended to an entire village of boys. Congrats to parents Melisa and Scott for raising socially aware children who are making a difference.

Progress Report from Okurase

August 31,2009

Today is a great day for the people of Okurase and for Project OKURASE. I just hung up from a phone call to Nana and Betty. They were at the port in Tema. After one long month of daily intensive effort and negotiation, we are finally being allowed to take home our 513 bicycles and 57 sewing machines. The containers were about to be opened as we spoke. I only hope that all the merchandise is still intact. Medaase and great congratulations to Nana and her team. They win the award for persistence and strength.

I immediately called David of Pedals for Progress who sent the shipment. These bicycles are like his children and he doesn’t rest til he knows they are home. David talked to me about how the bicycles alone will change the village economically and I will see evidence of this the next time I am in the village. I can’t wait. David, you can now breathe.

AND THE SEWING that Pedals for Progress made happen…..

Betty and Nana have the sewing centre running full steam. So far they have recruited 6 seasoned sewers and 4 trainees. The sewers have launched full on into making our recycled market bags. Soon they will also be sewing school uniforms. It is so great to see empowerment of women happen before our eyes.

Betty will be bringing back Ghanaian fabric for clothing designer Jodi Lee (www.sandboxrebel.com) to use in her design of children’s clothing. She will launch this line in November. Inner city Los Angeles women in recovery who are interns for Jodi Lee will be sewing the children’s clothing that will be marketed in the U. S. and other countries. Part of the profits will go to Project OKURASE to build the Centre. Also, for every outfit sold money will be available to the women of Rhion’s Sewing Centre in Okurase to sew a school uniform that will be given to an orphaned child to enable her to go to school. Eventually women in Okurase will join their Los Angeles sisters in sewing the children’s clothing.

In closing… Medaase to Pedals for Progress, medaase to Betty, medaase to Capelo and our whole crew in Ghana. Akwaaba to Jodi Lee and Linda McManus. To Nana Ama Yeboah… what do you say about such a woman… the mother of Project OKURASE…the mother of innovation in Ghana.. you amaze me every day and I am so thrilled to have the ongoing opportunity to learn from you. Medaase and me ho wo ekyere.

Cindy

Reflections on Last Days of Ghana Tour

Back in Charleston now having gotten through days of food poisoning that I got on my last day in Ghana. I am so thankful it was the last day instead of the first day. As I was sitting in emergency department I was thinking about how our people in Okurase don’t have this luxury and as I felt I was about to die, if I were in Okurase I would have been closer to that reality over something that is highly fixable. As a health care professional, health care in the U.S. rarely meets my standard and it is so frustrating but it is a rude awakening when you look at there being NO health care available. So, let’s get on it and get this health care centre built.

I tell you I had the greatest surprise of my life that I was able to leave Ghana and actually enter the U.S. with a bag of laterite, a bag of sand, a bag of concrete, and 2 bricks. The architecture school asked me to bring all this back. A brick researcher at Clemson is going to work on our brick making and see if there is a way to improve. What another great gift from Clemson. All I had to do was get through customs with these materials. Ghana allowed me to take it out with Prof. Miller’s email, which they kept. I ran to the internet cafe in Kotoka airport to print out another email verifying why i am bringing soil into the U.S. from Africa. I thought I’d surely need it. As I got off the plane in Chicago there were messages being broadcast about hoof and mouth disease epidemics and the need to declare visitation to rural areas and time around livestock. I felt sure the laterite was history. However, we made it through! I am looking forward to this research and otherwise would never have known that the nation’s top brick researcher is at Clemson.

We are so very fortunate to have partnered with Clemson. They have been so good to us and we are extremely grateful. Aside from their wonderful acts, they are great human beings who we have enjoyed getting to know.

We have been truly truly blessed with relationships from so many angles…

The last days in Ghana were days of interacting with people to finalize important steps and tracking down Obama fabric for Ida. Yes, the country printed lovely fabric to commemorate our President’s visit and of course if Ida Taylor asks me to bring the moon, I of course will do my best to make it happen given that she is the world to me, to Djole, to PO.

We had a short visit with our own Ataa Lartey of the Street Academy and caught up with our new friend from January, Esther Lamptey. Esther for years was the Ghana table tennis champ and she is awesome. She volunteers at the Street Academy.

I wanted to buy a large check check bag and put a large number of people in it and bring them on the plane and to America just to have them around me for a lot of time. PO has so many great friends in Ghana and around the world and we are all coming together to change lives. Thank you to David and Lucia for coming to Ghana and painting the faces and arms of 1400 children. Thank you for your great spirit of caring and helping. We are welcoming Betty Cremmins in the next few days. She is coming to volunteer for PO from New York City and we found her via Pedals4Progress. We have this great container of bikes and sewing machines we are in the process of retrieving from the port in Tema and Betty is going to help us get the sewing centre started up. Medaase to Betty! Medaase to Pedals4Progress.

I am leaving Ghana without seeing our wonderful Walterdee. I am so upset about this and Walterdee I need contact number for you…sorry I missed you this trip. … keep up your great music makin. I am leaving without seeing Chief Nabila…so sorry we did not catch up Prof… next time… I am leaving having made new friends – David, Kwabena, K, David Mensah, Loren, Uncle Russ, Cally, Tina, Sidney, and many others. I am leaving as a much richer woman as Ghana and her people always feed my soul. Medaase to Ghana, to our PO family in America, England, Ghana… until next time.

Cindy

Setting up Office in Ghana

Sitting in the cool Cape Coast air listening to a Ghanaian man sing along with a Dolly Parton cd.. “The coat of many colours that my mama made for me….” The past 4 days have been whirlwind days. Nana and I have been nonstop on the Health Outreach. We are setting up our office and have to have items for it. David and I spent one day walking the market to locate a table, chairs, desk, and carpet. Then we had to load everything on the taxi and go home to unload. Not having transportation is such a challenge. Lucia and David returned from the Volta region and we headed to Okurase on Friday night. It was nice staying in Nkabom house in the village – very quiet. On Saturday morning I managed to miss the 5am jogging group but was us early for the Health Outreach.

The program was well attended. A local medical professional who has lost hope in the people of Okrurase told me that no one ever attends these things. When he walked up and saw over 500 people in attenance He told me they were just there to see the Obruni (white foreign woman). As the day went on he realized it was more than a different skin colour and asked Nana how we did it. He was surprised to hear it was about relationship and interaction.

We officially opened our office, behind the cinema. It is lovely. The doors and windows were painted with a nice green oil based paint. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t keep anyone from touching the wet paint. We even did a reading lesson with the children. Nonetheless, the majority of the village ended up green.

We learned that USA for Africa has donated the funds to cover vision care for the village and will do this donation through Project OKURASE. At the Outreach we had vision screening, dental screening, nutrition, HIVAIDS information, and environmental cleanliness. It was a great day despite the village’s expectation that having come to Ghana 5 times I would surely be fluent in Twi.

After the outreach, I came with Power to Cape Coast. As you enter town, the most striking think is all the Welcome/Akwaaba signs. The whole Obama family is much loved. We visited New LIfe orpahanage and interacted with the kids. Power performed with the opening of Panafest.

Tomorrow shoudl involve a lot of planning in preparation of the great many things ahead this week -bicycles and sewing macines.

It’s good to have electicity and running water.

Cindy
Swenson