First Post

Hello All,

I have been in Ghana for over a week; thus, I felt it was time to write about my initial experiences here. I landed in Accra, but have been staying in Takoradi for the past week. I believe that the first and most significant thing to mention is cultural awareness. I am not familiar with Ghanaian culture, and this is a significant roadblack in my work. It is not explictely stated; however, cultural understanding is the foundation of all development work. Sustainable development must be carried out from the local perspective(s); otherwise, it is simply perpetuating the North-South divide, and is another example by which the North excerts dominance and superiority. Anyway, this gives me a great excuse to go out and experience Ghanaian culture. Thanks to John and Helen (my host family), I have learned quite a bit thus far about the history of Ghana (including colonization and the slave trade), natural resources, language and cultural norms . It seems that every conversation is a learning experience.

In addition, I am running into a key theme in all aspects of my work: Access to justice. Most often, this manifests in the lack of financial resources. To use a wider example from Ghana: According to John, gold is a key natural resource in Ghana; however, Ghanaians lack the resources and technology to actually mine the gold. Therefore, approximately 80 - 90% are owned by Europeans. This is a key problem in many developing nations. Globalization has created an atmosphere where the North economically exploits the South. This system perpetuates the underdevelopment of the South, and is really just an extention of colonization. On a smaller level, lack of access to justice manifests in many forms: There may be language barriers that prevent citizens from understanding the laws. This is further complicated by the fact that there may be a significant lack of funds to support programs that increase access to justice. One of my newly formed objectives here will be to simplify laws relevent to WiLDAF for release to the general public. I'm sure I will have more to say about these issues as time goes on.

On another note, I have met with many of the people I will be working with at DOVVSU and the courts. James and I just finished preparing the data collection sheets for the program and my first official day in court will be tomorrow. I'm very excited to start my work here. I've also had the opportunity to sit in on some counselling and mediation sessions.

That's it for now; Stay tuned.

Reena