Challenges of NGO work and more about FFK

Today I visited the region of Central Gonja. I realize I have not fully explained what the NGO Futures For Kids does so in brief, it piggybacks upon a more established NGO, School For Life which educates rural children especially girls in a crash course of 9 months which prepares them to go into the formal schooling system. It also helps to teach the parents, many of whom are uneducated and illiterate about the importance of education particularly for girls. One of the traditions here is for a girl child to be given to their aunt essentially as a laborer, and they do not get the chance to go to school. Both NGOs target these children and their families. School For Life pays the school fees and does trainings, and FFK provides a bag of maize to compensate the families for the work the girl would have done in providing for the family. FFK also donates some bicycles, school books and stationary. FFK sponsors about 50 children in 3 districts in the Northern region of Ghana. One of the issues that is coming up is that FFK does not have their own vehicle, and the communities are hours from Tamale, the central city, and hours away from each other. Hence whenever a trip must be made to monitor the children, deliver supplies or as in my case, visit the communities to conduct surveys, the staff must take public transportation and then go on a motorbike with one of the School For Life officers who have offices in each region. It is complicated to work out, time consuming and expensive. I think it would make more sense to have consolidated the recipients into a few communities which are closer and therefore easier to access. Also, some villages have 10 recipients while others have only 1. While it is always hard to say “no” to anyone in need, the practicalities must also be considered for such a new and small NGO. The other issue is that each community speaks different languages, so it is difficult to find a staff member from either NGO who can communicate with all of the areas, that will be one of the challenges I face in conducting interviews of the beneficiaries. There also are communication difficulties between the 2 NGOs and within them as well, since the main office of FFK is 14 hours south of their practicing area.
Another problem which has been cited in much of development literature is the lack of empowerment and capacity building. In simple terms, the old adage “Give a man a fish, feed him for one day, teach a man to fish, feed him for life” is not being very well administered. Yes once some of the children complete school and grow up there will be some long term change, but as it stands currently, the people are simply showing up and receiving the supplies and not really taking an active part in the structure of the NGO. Some of the members in the community today apparently seemed to act less than gracious and even entitled, the field officers were frustrated that the people seemed to just be sitting back and waiting to be given something and profusely thanking us, but not showing that they were really committed to completing their part which is essentially supporting the children to go to school. It is hard because the communities in Central Gonja are Muslim and there are stricter gender expectations within the traditions than in the Christian areas. One man seemed to get offended when the mothers were so strongly encouraged to support the kids and felt indignant at the fact that the fathers role was not recognized as much. It is difficult to change traditional beliefs especially when the participants are not taking a strong active role in the process.
It was hard for me to sit through the meeting today for several reasons. One, I do not speak the language and do not have high hopes I will be able to master more than a few words due to the complexity of it. Two, I do not know the culture well and am anxious about returning to the communities alone to conduct interviews via a translator. Three, hearing about the frustrations and miscommunications is exhausting and makes the entire process of fighting poverty so overwhelming. Several of the children had visible health issues, such as malnutrition, crossed eyes, strange growths on their bodies and it is really sad to see and makes you wonder how much they can learn in school regardless of how many books and uniforms they have, when they lack the protein to help their brains develop, or have vision problems and possibly learning disabilities resulting from their situation. There are tons of NGOs in the area and one thing I want to work on is connecting them, for example if a health oriented NGO could also link up with these communities, it would benefit the recipients holistically. Again, I feel lost as to how to go about doing this since I do not know anyone here except my colleague and I don’t know the culture or language, or really anything about connecting NGOs. One of my goals while I am here is simply to learn more about development work in the field and the many logistical and practical challenges associated with this work.