Get Involved: A report on Upper Denkyira District, Ghana
              (by Rashid Zuberu)

This article is dedicated to the volunteers and friends of Young Peace Brigades (http://www.youngpeacebrigade.org), who are working conscientiously to improve the lots of the mentioned communities. Their untiring effort, the risk they take on a daily basis, and the hope and smiles they carry with them is a manifestation of what society can do if we can for once shed away our differences.

The Upper Denkyira District is one of the 13 administrative districts in the central region in Ghana. According to 2004 projections, the district has a population of 122 537, with 3.1 per cent annual growth rate; of these, 77 per cent live in the rural area. Dunkwa-On-Offin is the district capital with a population of 26 215. The district falls within the semi equatorial zone with an extreme climate and torrential rains during the two rainfall regimes. It is faced with different socio-economic challenges.

Based on the 2004 district projection, 72 per cent of the population was found to be living below the poverty line; this is much higher than the national average of 39.5 per cent. It is a fact that 20 per cent of the people fall within the "Hard Core Poverty" category.

The principal economic activity of the district is agricultural, which is mainly palm plantations and cocoa exportations; this is based on small scale production. There is an important Timber exportation. Besides this, there is subsistence farming in other major plantations (plantain, cassava) and cereals like rice and corn.

Most families live in groups and small settlements; they engage in small scale farming for self-consumption. While men devote themselves to work in the farm during most of the day, the women play an important role in both domestic affairs and on farms. Most children are used on the farms and also as domestic labourers and don't attend school regularly.

The majority of the population speaks the Akan language with a minority of English speakers. There is a high percentage of illiteracy among adult inhabitants.

While the district capital is provided with basic infrastructure, the rural areas cannot boast of good potable water, electricity, and communication networks. Also, most roads in the district are not tarred and are not accessible by public transport.

The situation calls for urgent intervention in the area of poverty reduction. Different reports point to the fact of an elevated decrease of the level of education, especially in the rural communities.

In order to improve this situation, the community of Kramokrom and two others requested assistance from the administrative sitting of the Unit Committee, at Mbraim, which forms part of the District Assembly. By unanimous decision and consent of the Committee and community members, a task force was charged to design an intervention strategy for the communities. The team tasked to design and come out with a comprehensive diagnostic of the situation, comprised of Young Peace Brigades – a local non-governmental organization (NGO) - and international development workers from Europe with diverse backgrounds. The first intervention will take place in the triplet communities of Kramokrom, Nyame Bekyere and Camp, and the nearest small scattered settlements with a total population of about 800 inhabitants with a total distance of about ten miles from Mbraim.

The first identification that was found was the high percentage of children in the "triplet community and near-by settlements" working on farms and as domestic labourers and were not attending school. The only school building that existed in the community was partially ruined and unassisted in terms of basic teaching aids. The long walking distance to other schools in the area with the non-existence of public school transport, makes it difficult for about 70 per cent of 200 children under school going age to have basic education. Those who get the chance to attend school on a semi-regular basis have to work on the farm after school and do not have the privilege of a good learning environment as they look unmotivated, unhealthy, sluggish, and lethargic. This is also due to the fact that most of them have to trek long distances (three kilometres) through unguided tropical rainforest.

Juliana (eight years old): I wake up as early as six in the morning, fetch water down the stream, clean the compound, take my bath, put on my school uniform with no privilege of a breakfast, only two roasted plantain sticks, begin to make the long journey from Akrobonsu Adja to Kramokrom DA primary school, which is about four kilometres. I want to be a teacher that is why I go to school.

There were no qualified educational personnel teaching in the area. The poor teacher-pupil ratio in the district makes it difficult for teaching in the neighborhood, due to hard living conditions and the lack of basic infrastructure in the rural communities.

The salaries of government teachers are very low and most of the rural educators are pupil teachers who are not adequately trained and most of them do not attend school regularly.

The non-effective monitoring of the teachers by the circuit supervisor, who is also not adequately resourced in terms of transportation, and other logistics to carry out his duties, are some of the difficulties in monitoring the performance of the teachers.

According to the team analysis, we found a high level of educational underachievement among the children attending the school. The teachers consulted, said that the situation is a result of the bad mental and physical conditions of the pupils, tired of the field labour and mostly because of serious malnutrition. Besides this, there is a basic lack of interest from parents concerning the well-being and education of their children, which is part of the reason for the high school dropout rates.

It is worth mentioning the high rate of diseases among the population of the "triplet community" and nearby settlements, especially in the children, caused by the poor sanitary conditions and the nonexistence of a proper health infrastructure in the area. The single dispensary is situated in Mbraim ten miles away. The building is in a very awful condition and serves an additional ten communities. It is administered by a dispenser with no medical background. There is no medically trained staff in the area and basic equipment and medicines are scarce.

Although medically untrained, he plays an important role in the lives of the people of this tropical region. During both day and night, he attends to pregnant women, the sick, the dying, and weak. Most of the villagers have to travel long miles deep in the night through the dangers of the forest to seek medical attention. What he cannot treat he refers it to the district hospital ten kilometres away.

The rate of illiteracy among the population over fifteen years is alarmingly high, at approximately 75 per cent. This is because most people never attended school and are excluded from the adult literacy program of the non-formal educational division of the Ministry of Education. Besides this, there are no specific health campaigns, advocacy in the community or in any of the schools in the area, or orientation for family planning.

Children constitute the future leadership and workforce of each nation and therefore require commitment from the adult population. Their future lies in the provision of measures and actions that will provide appropriate levels of protection and survival.

A look from the outside view of the villages and its surroundings gives you an impression of a paradise, but deep inside the forest is a story of poverty, hunger, starvation, hopelessness and dejection, though there is a unique sense of hope and survival. As they say, 'Ye mre be ba', meaning 'Our time will come'. Like Ben Okri's poem tries to portray...

we are the miracles that God made
to taste the bitter fruit of time
we are precious
and one day our suffering will turn into the wonders of the earth. There are things that burn me now which turn golden when I am happy.
Do you see the mystery of our pain?
That we bear poverty and we are able to sing and dream sweet things...

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