CorpsAfrica/Ghana swears in maiden volunteers
CorpsAfrica/Ghana has sworn in about 18 volunteers to assist and accelerate development and improve the quality of life among rural communities in selected regions of the country.
CorpsAfrica is a non-profit organization founded in 2011 that offers a transformative experience to emerging leaders in Africa, while giving them a chance to be a part of the solution for their own countries, mobilizing them to combat poverty and empower communities
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Using Human-Centered Design (HCD) and Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), the volunteers will pursue to address emerging challenges and complex local needs of the selected communities without restricting to some specific sectors of the economy.
The Organisation has so far impacted communities in Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal and Malawi, having done over 800 community projects with more than 400 volunteers, with Kenya and Ghana offices being the newest. This will be Ghana’s maiden Cohort of Volunteers.
Sustainability
Speaking at the inaugural ceremony in Accra on December 20, the Country Director for CorpsAfrica/Ghana, Moses Cofie mentioned that the approach to getting individuals empowered to enable them solve problems on their own was a sustainable way of building a better country.
He added that the biggest asset which could not be neglected in empowering them was the mind.
“I think that what CorpAfrica is doing is what Africa needs, if it has to really develop and have sustainable development. As a person, I have been looking for that solution that would make people believe in themselves so much and will be able to look around them and believe they can solve their problems.
So when I came across CorpsAfrica, I said to myself this is the right way, and it is more than a job for me,” he said.
He explained that the volunteers will be sent to various parts of the country within the selected regions to live with people in the rural communities for one year as facilitators for change and empowering the communities to become problem solvers.
Speaking about the project, the Founder and Executive Director for CorpsAfrica, Liz Fanning, stated that it was a sustainable one which does not come from a set agenda but focused on the needs of the communities.
“Often times the issue could be education but not the need of a teacher or classroom facility but a bridge that needs to be constructed for the school to be in operation, that is why going in with a preconceived agenda is necessary. The idea is that each community is unique and complex but we actually address every sector,” she noted.
She was very hopeful that the first cohort of volunteers will deliver their mandate just as they have been trained within the five months’ period.
She charged them to deliver without fear while transforming lives and impacting the various communities.
Know this
CorpsAfrica’s vision is to be in all 54 African nations – with 250 volunteers in each country each year – that’s 13,500 volunteers a year across the continent by 2030.
