By Haley Jenkins

Collegiate’s Walker Hill (‘20) joined Mia Garland, a Douglas Freeman High School senior, and Katie Yohe, a teacher at Richmond’s Cristo Rey School, a volunteer teacher at Our Lady of Holy Cross in Ghana, and a mentor to Hill and Garland, on a trip to Ghana this past summer. While in Ghana, they met many people, including the Mensah family. They learned a heartfelt story of the endless work this family does to help their son, Ezra. 

Photo courtesy of Walker Hill.

On the GofundMe page for Ezra, Yohe shares the story of this amazing family, the extraordinary love they have for each other, and shares a plea to help these people in need. 

“When you meet the Mensah family, you quickly pick up on the love they have for each other. Collins and Vida have raised 4 wonderful children, 3 of whom attend Our Lady of Holy Cross School–the school I work with in Ghana. The first time their son James invited me to their house, it was like I immediately became a part of their family. It was this visit where I met the fourth Mensah child, Ezra. Ezra is four years old and was born with jaundice. A day after he was born, the hospital removed the lamp providing light-therapy for jaundice because they only had one, and there was another baby who needed it. When Vida was able to go visit her newborn son the following day, she noticed something was wrong. It turns out when they removed the lamp from Ezra, complications occurred, and he was left with cerebral palsy. The hospital was at fault, but in Ghana that means nothing.   

The Mensah family was encouraged to ‘dispose of their son’ because of the troubles he would cause to the family. Health care in Ghana is not cheap, and having a son with special needs would put a serious financial burden on the family. Collins and Vida never considered this an option, and they took their son home to love as they did all of their other children. 

Collins works full time to provide for his family, but Vida has had to stay home to take care of Ezra full time. He requires physical therapy twice a week, doctors visits, medications, and much more. No school in Ghana will take Ezra because there are no schools for special needs students. The family does all they can to take care of Ezra, but it’s not easy. 

Ezra can’t hear but doctors say hearing aids would help. I am trying to raise money for Ezra’s hearing aids, transport money for the back and forth trips to the doctor, hospital visits, medicine, and therapy sessions.”

When Hill and Garland met the Mensah family, they were traveling with the help of A Broader View (ABV), a US-based nonprofit that offers volunteer travel opportunities and specializes in meaningful volunteering travel abroad programs. Founded in 2007, ABV offers gap year programs, as well as family volunteer opportunities, for potentially life-changing experiences overseas. This organization provides opportunities to help with national parks, orphanages, hospitals, animal conservation centers, women’s shelters, and teaching world wide.

In order to travel with ABV, one must pay a certain amount of money, depending on the trip. These paid expenses are used to support the local staff, the partners ABV supports, and their on-going work to make international volunteering effective and transformative for communities in need. A Broader View focuses on “working with local homestays and guesthouses, and utilizing locally-owned restaurants, transportation, and tour operators, in order to ensure [one’s] money benefits,” according to their website. They hire local people and experienced local coordinators and guides, who are paid a fair wage.

ABV is also conscientious about offsetting the environmental impacts of travel through initiatives such as their Travelers Against Plastic (TAP) campaign. TAP is an outreach initiative which helps educate global travelers about the harmful impacts of using disposable plastics. ABV encourages traveling prepared by finding other resources that are just as useful as disposable plastic. According to TAP, their vision is to “catalyze a self-sustaining global movement to reduce travelers’ use and dependence on disposable plastics.” ABV demonstrates ways to protect local resources, and encourages the purchase of “carbon offsets, [which] prepare travelers to face cultural sensitivity situations, as well as providing tools and guidance for the best solutions.” ABV focuses on their commitment to support the local community with both financial aid and hands-on volunteer work efforts, and they donate a portion of volunteer trip fees (65-70%) to the community development projects they support. 

Volunteer Ghana is one of A Broader View’s programs. Volunteer Ghana is located in the central region of Ghana, Kasoa, which serves as a border between the central and greater Accra regions of Ghana. Kasoa is the capital town of the Awutu Senya East District. Kasao is a market community, providing significant importance to the economy of Ghana, as it is a prominent regional marketplace for selling and trading goods.The location of Volunteer Ghana is ideal, as Kasao’s prominent location makes traveling to Accra, Cape Coast, and some of the nearby market and beach areas easily accessible. Paul W.K. Yankson and Monique Bertrand’s The Challenges of Urbanization in Ghana includes research showing that Kasao has seen dramatic population growth in the last decade, as people have spread out from the Greater Accra region. This rapid growth has come as a surprise to some of the people in Kasoa, resulting in issues due to a lack of infrastructure, roads, and housing, as well as a reduction of farmland, and food shortages have become more frequent.

Another Collegiate connection to Ghana is Collegiate’s partner school, Ghana International School (GIS). GIS is located in Accra, very close to the location of ABV’s Volunteer Ghana, and is home to students from all over the world. According to Erica Coffey, Director of Global Engagement and Inclusion, and Senior Capstone Coordinator Rhiannon Boyd, Collegiate and GIS first met at the 2017 Lebone Leadership Festival held in South Africa. From there, the relationship has grown, and GIS students and faculty began regularly attending Collegiate’s annual International Emerging Leaders Conference in 2018. 

Karin Laing, a South African volunteer through A Broader View, shared and answered questions about her experience while volunteering at the orphanage in Kasao an interview posted on ABV’s Vimeo channel in 2017. In her initial search for an outreach opportunity, she researched keywords such as “children’s home,” “Ghana,” and “volunteer work,” which led her to A Broader View.

At the orphanage, Laing worked with children of all ages, from preschoolers to high school students. She taught basic numeracy and computation, language and literacy, art and creativity, religion and moral education, information, communication, technology, music, sporting activities, and even lead excursions and field trips to a variety of different places. Through her work in Volunteer Ghana, one aspect that surprised Laing the most was the “love between the teachers and the students in the school.” She said she was “amazed by the love reciprocated from the student’s to the volunteers, as well.” She loved watching the student’s “blossom in the environment they were in purely off of the love they had for one another.” Within Kasoa, Laing said she felt “safe.” She said there was a “feeling of good will that spread throughout the area.” People were “kind, friendly, open, and asked inquisitive questions.” Laing faced “no real challenges throughout her time in Kasao, and would love to go back.” She said this program granted her a “life-changing, amazing experience that was so humbling, so surprising, watching people be so happy and grateful for each moment they get to live.” 

Laing says she learned many lessons through her time in Kasao, but most importantly that life “is not about consumption. It is about the people whom you surround yourself with, the people whom you love, that makes this life so incredibly complete.” Laing also shared that the “accommodations of Kasao, and the inclusions within this volunteer organization were awesome.” Her most favorite memory was at the end of her stay when she saw “an assembly of children gathered together, singing and dancing, with delighted smiles on each of their faces. It was beautiful.” Laing has been proactive in speaking out, sharing her love for this organization, the people, and passion for outreach. 

In her initial research for her trip with Garland and Yohe, Walker Hill “knew that Yohe had spent a lot of time in Ghana, so I reached out to her last year to see if she was going back, during the summer.” Hill was “very interested in going with her because I had always wanted to work with kids in a developing country.” Hill “kept in touch with Yohe throughout the year, and when I found out Yohe was going back, we talked through the year, in order to figure out the details, eventually figuring everything out.” While in Kasoa, Hill taught a variety of subjects at Our Lady of Holy Cross School, such as physical development, theater, music, social skills, mathematics concepts, health, science and discovery, art, cooking, and language development with different grades each day.

Our Lady of Holy Cross School is a sponsored ministry of the Sisters of the Holy Cross. This school offers students an education in the Catholic Holy Cross tradition. Beyond education, the school also seeks to “educate the heart, preparing students to make a difference in their communities and the world.” Holy Cross has grown significantly since its opening in 2006. The school now educates around a thousand pre-K through eighth grade students. The school has faced some complications during its growth, as enrollment began outpacing the school’s transportation resources, leaving many students without a dependable way to get to and from school each day. Some students used unreliable shuttle and taxi services or piled onto motorbikes, while others walked to school unattended, which presented many risks to their safety.

As a result of many generous donations, Our Lady of Holy Cross has purchased a bus to ensure a dependable and safe commute for its students. In a reflection on the time spent with the Sisters of the Holy Cross, during her trip, Hill writes, “My time spent with the sisters was an unforgettable experience. I cannot thank them enough for their constant generosity and kindness towards us throughout our stay in Ghana. I always felt very comfortable and safe staying in the convent and am thankful for the sisters for providing us with that kind of environment. Meeting the sisters and seeing the work they have put into Our Lady of Holy Cross School was mind-blowing. They have made such an incredible impact on the entire community around them. Our Lady of Holy Cross School is incomparable to any other school in the area. The sisters did an incredible job creating a hard-working, positive, and joyous atmosphere for the kids. The kids there are blessed with great classrooms, amazing teachers, and respectful classmates. Our Lady Of Holy Cross School values learning and teaches the kids the importance of working hard. Not only are all the kids very diligent, but they are also very polite and respectful. They are very well-disciplined at school, which shows in their behavior outside of the classroom. I enjoyed every second I spent with the kids both inside and outside of the classroom. Both the kids at Our Lady Of Holy Cross School and the sisters truly made my first trip to Ghana extremely impactful and memorable.”

In a 2016 video on YouTube, Yohe provided informative insight into a day in the life of a student at Our Lady of Holy Cross. A student will arrive to school by bus and attend a morning assembly, where the students gather together, singing and dancing. Then, they will march to their classrooms, learning a variety of material in many different courses. The school provides a clean, spacious room for the kitchen and dining hall, where students gather to eat homemade meals. The students have recess where they play games, sing, dance, and enjoy the outdoors. The school also offers boarding dorms for junior high students, which they defined as Basic 1-10, increasing in numbers dependent on the grade.

Yohe says Our Lady of Holy Cross is “By far the best school in Ghana.” Hill said, “I loved it so much, and would love to go back if I can. It was an amazing opportunity, and I learned a lot about myself from the students there. It really put my life into perspective, and taught me to be grateful for everything, and kind to everyone.” Hill added, “I was there for a total of two weeks. I traveled to other places in Ghana, like Cape Coast, and visited the Cape Coast Slave Castle. The Cape Coast Slave Castle was where slaves spent weeks in small quarters with awful living conditions, and many of them died as a result. If they survived, they were sent across the Atlantic Ocean to America. This is where I learned a lot about the history of Ghana and its involvement in the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Though visiting this site was very informative, it was sickening to see what Ghanaians went through during that time.” Hill concluded, “I think it is important for everyone to immerse themselves in a culture like this one, and see how some people live their lives in different developing countries. It really opened my eyes to a whole new world, while teaching me, and leaving a lasting impact on my daily life here in America.”