We sadly say good-bye to Queen Mother Nana Adjow-Sika,
who passed away last week. What a loss to the Axim community!
Nana served
on the Western Heritage Board since its first day. She was a co-signer on all
WHH bank checks. Because of her knowledge of the Axim community and families,
she was crucial in helping select our scholarship students.
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| Nana, second from left in rose-colored dress, with James' arm affectionately on her shoulder. She was part of the Western Heritage Home NGO team from the beginning. |
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Nana with her beloved Nyame quilt, made for her by Ghana Together's Jerome Chandler. The symbol in the middle is the traditional Ghanaian Adinkra symbol for God. It is revered and found widely on buildings, windows, clothing, etc.
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Interested especially in girls’ education and maternal
health, she was proud of her role in creating a purpose-built maternal health center
at the hospital. She counselled innumerable girls, and a few guys, too, in how
to wisely handle the mysteries of human reproduction!
Students, especially girls from the Axim Girls Senior High
School, use the path past her simple home and market stand as a short-cut on
their walk to school. She knew the students and never failed to encourage them
in their studies as they passed by.
She tried hard to gather the region’s Queen Mothers on a
regular basis, to work together especially for women and children’s issues. She
was highly respected in the community. She and Maryanne Ward of Ghana Together
became friends over the years. All of us of Ghana Together knew and respected
her and we will miss her.
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Nana and Ghana Together's Maryanne Ward having a nice conversation in May, 2018 in her home. Good friends!
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On other news, we are delighted to report that Western
Heritage Home Scholars Kingsley Lamin and Peter Assuah have been accepted at
Takoradi Technical University. They began classes on Oct 1---Kingsley in
Advanced Welding/Fabrication and Peter in Computer Science.
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| Peter (left) and Kingsley just a couple of days ago. They are "brothers", both having lived in the Children's Home in their early years and Axim boys forever |
Remember the Heritage Building, which Western Heritage Home began building, and we joined in to help via the Seattle-based non-profit Global Citizen Journey and the Boeing Corporation…before Ghana
Together was even in existence?
For about 5 years or so it was a Children’s Home. Then,
when the Ghana government closed children’s homes, it became a dormitory
for girls attending the then-new Axim Girls Senior High School.
Now, the girls’ high school has its own dormitory, and WHH
has found a new way to help the community. The Heritage is now a hostel for
workers putting up a new seawall to protect Axim from the rising ocean! This is
at least a two-year project.
This is a
great use of the building because Axim is rather isolated, and there is really no other accommodation within reasonable distance of the shoreline for the 25-30 temporary workers.
They travel to the seawall area by a short bus ride provided by the contractor. The contractor has provided a caretaker to clean and maintain the building.
WHH has used the initial rent funds to paint the building
inside and out, repair the roof, and repair some of the windows, etc. on the inside. They plan to
modify the inside with more partitions, to better accommodate the workers. Longer term, they will use the rent funds for their charitable
projects in the community.
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| Beginning work on sea defense. They first had to build a road so they can get the heavy equipment to the area |
And, thanks to Barry and Regina, Ebby Mienza, George
Hayford, and who knows how many other generous folks, there are another 969
children’s books at the Axim Public Library, ready to go out to 17 schools via
the tricycle/mobile library. Those kids are going to learn to read no matter what!
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Unpacking the boxes of books, readying them for delivery to 17 primary schools, via the tricycle-mobile library.
And that's it for this time! Thanks to all
for helping with scholarship funds, AND for donating, packing, shipping,
and delivering the books to the Axim Library! Whew!
And thanks to the Western
Heritage Home folks for all the work involved in turning the Heritage building
into a hostel for construction workers. Not so easy and a real community service!
Ghana Together
808 Addison Place
Mount Vernon, WA 98273
Email: info@ghanatogether.org
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