Articles - Miscellaneous

Raleigh International Expedition to Ghana

In the summer of 2004 I spent ten weeks in Ghana on a Raleigh International expedition. Raleigh International is a youth development charity which inspires people from all backgrounds and nationalities to discover their full potential by working together on challenging environmental and community projects around the world. The Republic of Ghana lies on the Gulf of Guinea, on the coast of tropical West Africa. It is roughly the same size as Great Britain. Burkina Faso borders it to the north, and Togo and Cote d'Ivoire lie to the east and west respectively. The Atlantic Ocean forms Ghana's southern boundary.

The first week in Ghana was spent at a base camp near Accra, Ghana's capital city, where we learnt camp craft skills and had a chance to acclimatise to the heat and humidity. The following three weeks were spent working with the Afram Plains Development Organisation; a Ghanaian NGO which comes under the umbrella of UK based Water Aid, to build household pit latrines in the remote village of Odemase. The work was hard physical labour without the assistance of mechanical tools. I also had the opportunity to teach several lessons in the local school. The next three weeks were spent working with the Wildlife Division of Ghana at Mole National Park in the Northern Region of Ghana. The project concentrated on completing a day care centre for children in the local ranger community and starting the construction of a pit latrine.

My final three weeks in Ghana were spent trekking in a remote area of dense rainforest in the Kybobo National Park on the Togo Border, an area with the highest mountains in Ghana. As much of the park was unexplored we cut new trails to find waterfalls and other areas of natural beauty. The final five days were spent on Lake Volta, one of the largest man made lakes in the world, where we canoed 55km up the East coast, making camp in remote shore locations along the way.

The whole ten weeks was an absolutely incredible experience of a lifetime, where I got the chance to experience an amazing country and an equally amazing culture.

Andrew Malpas

2 December, 2004