Ghana 2017

I have just returned from 4 weeks in Ghana volunteering in the orphanage and at a special needs school. My time there has allowed me to grow as a person and i have come out the other end feeling humbled, with the confidence to continue travelling and throwing myself into new experiences.
I applied to be on the special needs project in Ghana, however what i got was so much more. In the orphanage the children with special needs live amongst all of the other orphans, which automatically gives you the opportunity to get to know all of the children in the unit you volunteer in. Although it is very hard to spread yourself around, as the children require so much attention, i was able to find a nice balance of focusing on the children with special needs in the morning when the others were at school, and then being involved in the orphanage as a whole in the afternoon. The orphanage was a big shock for me, and no day there was the same. However, seeing that the children could live in such poor circumstances and yet still have a smile on their face warmed my heart and taught me to appreciate everything i have. I cannot describe the bonds that you can form with these children in just four weeks and i will genuinely miss them.
Throughout the program i learnt about the special needs school up the road from the orphanage and Seth kindly arranged for me to spend some time there. After knowing about the stigma attached to special needs in Ghana, i was apprehensive about what i was going to walk into. However, i am so pleased that i asked to do it, as i learnt much about their education system and even about Ghana as a whole. My volunteering there was not as hands on as it was in the orphanage, however it gave me a massive insight into the world of special needs there and i was able to exchange knowledge with the other teachers.
Attending the special needs school was not something mentioned in the hand book or that needed to even be offered to me, however when i asked about attending there Seth was more than willing to set it up for me. This was just one of the additional experiences that Seth set up throughout my time there to ensure that we had got the most out of our time in Ghana. The hard work and effort put in to organising and running a volunteer project such as this is very much appreciated, so a big thank you to Seth, Flo, Cindy, Christy and Dennis! Living in the volunteer house can give a taste of what living in Ghana is like, trying out the food and washing my clothes by hand ect. I feel like this allowed me to have a more realistic experience of the culture, whilst still allowing me to feel safe in an unknown country with someone to turn to if i needed help. In addition to this, living in the volunteer house gave me the opportunity to make some friends out of the pmgy team and other volunteers, listening to their experiences of life and supporting each other in the experiences we were having at the time. This social element of the program made for the perfect balance, as whatever challenges you may have faced whilst volunteering, you know you can go home and let of some steam.
All in all i feel that everyone needs an experience such as this, allowing you to venture out of your comfort zone with the knowledge that you have a second family supporting you the whole way.