I came, I talked, I conquered

James Willis explains how ICS has helped him to develop public-speaking skills

Human rights: team leader Emmanuel telling Savelugu students about their rights.

I’ll begin with a quick overview. My name is James and I'm terrified of public speaking.

One of the main principles of ICS and International Service is Personal and Professional Development. Even now, just six short weeks in, I can say that I have achieved this goal. Personal development for me was being able to conquer a task or challenge that gave me great trouble throughout the past, and for me, that was public speaking.

Let me explain.

During our ICS assessment day for International Service I had to present to a group of potential volunteers – as well as the assessors – on a topic I was passionate about. This could be anything in the world. I chose to present on my love of photography and how I developed this hobby. The room couldn't have had more than 10 or 11 people in it, yet when I stood up to present, I was shaking, nervous, jittery and incredibly flustered. Thankfully I was able to do what was needed and I passed (obviously).

So when I was told by my team leaders that it was my group’s week to present something from the Active Citizenship pack, (a guide given to every volunteer explaining various issues that affect ICS projects globally), I thought now would be the perfect time to challenge myself to do something different.

I could have presented to our small team, or just interviewed some of the locals on a subject. But for me that wouldn't have been a challenge, and that’s why I came to Ghana.

Instead of hiding in the office, my colleague and I wrote a lesson plan and approached the local high school, with the idea of educating teenagers on their human rights and specifically their rights as a child under the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child. It was all planned out, all my colleagues knew their jobs and the subject they had to talk about. The only thing left was to put the plan into action.

Talents: volunteers Frank and Jess with a group talking about their right to education.

This was where the nerves kicked in. I started shaking and it wasn't until I stepped up and started talking that I realised it was no big deal, that I was scared over nothing. Once the afternoon was over, the kids seemed to have learned something new, I’d learned something new about myself, and my colleagues had enjoyed the activities.

My time with International Service so far has been an amazing adventure and I’ve learned a lot, but for me, one afternoon in a school with 70 teenagers has helped more than I could have imagined. Throughout our training, it is emphasised that we will grow and change as people and professionals. Initially I thought of this as sales pitch – just a way to draw us all in.

But I've conquered a fear, and a fear I didn't think I would ever be able to beat. For that alone, the ICS experience has already been worth every second. And that’s before you factor in the lifelong friends, the business skills, the Dagbani language, the culture and the knowledge gained from it all.

Here’s to six more amazing weeks!

NFED: making the dream possible

Mumuni Alhassan reports on how the work of NFED is helping to lift rural women in Ghana's Northern Region out of poverty

Human rights: team leader Emmanuel and volunteer Dionne talk to school pupils about their human rights

Before the commencement of my ICS journey, my hope was to be placed in LIFE Project, Sandema, to help advocate for the persons with disabled (PWDs) and to also build their capacity to enable their rights and capabilities to be realized. This will enable them to be productive in life and be able to contribute enormously and effectively to the development of their community, country and the nation at large. But to my surprise, my hope was proved futile and I found myself in NFED Savelugu.

Having got there, I met lovely and adorable colleague volunteers who hail from different cultural groups and hold different schools of thought when it comes to execution of works and sharing of ideas in relation to development. Having met them, my fears and prejudice have all evaporated, and I integrated well with them. I have set goals for myself which they are helping me to achieve.

NFED is the Non-Formal Education Division under the Ministry of Education in Savelugu municipality, north of Tamale. It provides literacy classes to the people who are not able to have access to formal education. Their target groups are the rural poor. In running the classes, they have teachers (facilitators) who assist them in making this dream possible, whilst the NFED serve as supervisors to ensure that these facilitators deliver up to expectations.

These facilitators are given incentives which serve as motivation to enable them deliver well. The classes are run in 21-month cycle. After the first cycle they are then enrolled into the normal classes to learn basic English. When these people are done with the basic English and can now read and write, NFED encourages them to form income-generating groups (IGGs) and start running income-generating activities (IGAs). These enable them earn an income in order to develop themselves, their community and the nation.

This is where NFED’s partnership with International Citizen Service (ICS) comes in. International Service (one of the charities involved in the ICS scheme) partners with NFED to provide livelihood skills to these IGGs, so that they will be able to develop their families, communities and the country at large. International Service focuses on reducing poverty levels. On a global level Ghana is relatively poor and the Northern Region is the leading region in terms of poverty among the 10 regions in Ghana - this particularly impacts on providing livelihood skills to vulnerable and deprived people.

During our first discussion with NFED we wanted to ascertain the progress of the IGGs and the way forward to ensuring that the dream of ICS was feasible. According to them, "the intervention of ICS has brought significant improvement into the lives of these IGGs in terms of running their IGAs". The improvements they stated were leadership skills and group dynamics, business management, how to develop their own constitution, how to register their group as cooperative, and how to get bank accounts through the cooperative.

Community: ICS volunteer Ayisha talks to the cooperative members in Kukuo.

Human rights are a key indicator in this goal of international development. People with peace of mind can think critically and find alternative methods when it comes to planning towards development.

But people suffer various forms of abuses of human rights every day. As a result, we as International Service volunteers are also serving as human rights activists, aiming at bridging the gap between human rights and human rights law and to realize the recognition of human rights law.

We started to do so by sensitizing Savelugu Junior High School on the United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child, covering topics like the family, health, safety, education and personal rights as part of their volunteer learning session.

We believe that when peoples identify what their rights are they can live peacefully and contribute to developmental issues in their families, communities and the nation at large.