Community Engagement - Savelugu-Nanton district

By Katie and Abdul-Hamid

So, what is community engagement? Let’s start with that. Our good friend Wikipedia defines it as “the process by which community benefit organizations and individuals build ongoing permanent relationships for the purpose of applying a collective vision for the benefit of the community.”

Why is this relevant? Community engagement is at the heart of our work, it is the channel through which we can achieve our goals for the benefit of the residents in the community.

Abdul-Hamid and IGG members of Kukuo community, October 2015

Katie being taught how to use the local hand pump. October 2015

How do we engage with the community? It was quite amazing on our first day visit to our community. In Ghana, there is a tradition that in every community there is a ruler who is referred to by the people as the Chief. Upon arrival, we were required to partake in the tradition of buying cola nuts to present to the Chief. This practice is known in the local dialect Dagbani as 'gbanazugu pabu', which is an acknowledgment of the reign of the chief and is considered as a sign of respect. This is a stark contrast between the beginning of building relationship with a group in England, which typically would involve an exchange of emails or a telephone call to gain permission. However, it is beyond this initial interaction that the lines between Ghanaian and UK community engagement begin to blur. Upon first glance, it seems that they are worlds apart, but moving forward and becoming more involved; we can see that they are intrinsically the same. 

So what exactly are the similarities? A major common issue is a language and communication barrier. The reasons for this language barrier may be different, for example in Ghana there are around eighty speaking language dialects as you travel from region to region which makes it difficult even for Ghanaians to communicate with each other. Whereas, in the UK the language barrier may stem from different causes, however a major contributor to this is the migration of asylum seekers, refugees and economic migrants to the UK from countries around the world. Many of them will speak a different language with little or no knowledge of English. This can create difficulties when organizations would like to engage with them.

It is a well known fact that ‘education is key.’ If it wasn’t for education, how could we highlight this issue to you? So talking about this, a low level of education can slow the work of an organization which normally works within a time frame and subsequently has to improvise with new strategies and tools to make the work or the information accessible to all. The implication that this can have on a project is a difficulty in achieving its’ goals within their specified time frame. Again, this can impact both Ghana and the UK similarly. Finally, we perceive another commonality to be cultural differences this can present itself in both positive and negative ways. So let’s get the negative out of the way first. Within the communities that we are working with, a negative might be how freely women feel they can interact with us. This could be as a result of their cultural orientation with respect to gender roles. For example in Ghana, it is typically a more of a man who will make a decision on behalf of a family which can make it difficult when interacting with the women in our groups because they are not familiar with taking responsibilities for decisions that are made.

Similar issues can occur, when people who originate from countries with similar patriarchal societies move to the UK and access support services. Now, we believe it is the responsibility of organizations who are directly working with such communities to empower and give those people the confidence and the platform to make their voices heard.

How else can we overcome these barriers? Moving forward we were able to overcome our barriers through the following; the use of pictures in communications, awareness of body language, the use of translators, and finally understanding and respect for individual culture. We believe that these solutions are universal.