Before I left the US, our household went through a purging of all the hats we don't use anymore - we came up with about 35-40 hats. So I packed them in my bag and brought them to Ghana. Jim and I have been handing them out along our journey so far and this morning we emptied the bag at Nsaba before we left.
Take a look at the picture and I bet many of you can see a part of you represented in these hats.
Sorry Stephen, but your Lynyrd Skynyrd trucker hat is now in Ghana. I thought for sure I told one of your brothers to pull it out of the mix - but now Sweet Home Alabama rings in Nsaba.
We traveled to Nsawam today where we visited BOPA. BOPA is a school for girls in the heart of Nsawam, we literally had to ask street vendors to move just to get inside of the school compound - it was a small sea of people to say the least.
BOPA is run by a minister named Dora. Dora has got to be one of the most dynamic and entrepreneurial people I have ever met. If this lady wasn't working for God, she'd be the CEO of some company.
BOPA is hugely committed to the clean water project. Clean water is front and center to all they do. BOPA catches huge amounts of rain water from the roofs of their buildings and I lost count at just how many reserve tanks they have that are holding water.
The one problem BOPA does have is that because they are catching rain water off the roofs, the water going through the system is laced with fine dust from the Sahara. So, the good news is that the local clean water tech, Michael, was with us at BOPA and he was able to provide some additional insights and training for the BOPA operator that will hopefully help improve the removal of the dust. There is a picture of the operator by the clean water station.
In addition, Jim knew of the problem and brought a little finer level of filter for Michael to install to see if that improved the removal of the dust as well.
One of the pictures you see below is the tank that catches all the rain water from the roofs and is the source tank into the clean water system which there is also picture.
BOPA (Dora) is taking girls, mostly the most vulnerable, from Nsawam and the surrounding villages and she is teaching them to be "self sustaining". BOPA teaches the girls two things: 1) an academic curriculum; and 2) a trade. The girls are trained in either cooking, sewing, or dying and printing of cloth. The program is a series of training and then placement as an apprentice and then more training and then another placement, etc. until the girls are ready to leave BOPA and go back home or relocate to somewhere else.
The current school compound is small based on the number of girls (80) attending BOPA. Some years ago Dora obtained some funding to build a new campus (100 acres) out in the country side where BOPA could serve more girls and BOPA could provide more education and training of trade. We actually saw the new campus and partially built building on the way to Nsawam.
Dora's vision is to expand the girls capabilities into agriculture, car repair, welding, etc. to where they are able to participate in even greater opportunities in the work force.
This lady is changing lives.
Dora doesn't want to depend on anyone. She wants BOPA to be a self sustaining and always growing institution. She has struggled to raise the remaining funds needed to complete the new campus mainly because she is also the chief fund raiser - so its difficult to take time away from the day-to-day of BOPA and spend the necessary time and energy to raise the capital.
In the mean time, they take the girls every other weekend to the campus and spend the night looking forward to the future.
We arrived to Akropong a little while ago for the evening.
Dora Rocks!!
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