Ghana Trip Four - Wrap-Up

There was precious little time during this trip to just sit back and reflect. In fact, I am already home! I left late Saturday night and got back to Albuquerque on Sunday evening.

I gave everyone pretty good reports during the trip. We accomplished all of our major objectives.

• We have the content we need for the video. We are well on the way to having a very acceptable product I can use for fundraising. It won't be perfect but perfect is not needed.

• We completed all of the focus groups we needed for our community assessment requirement. There was a bit of drama to see if we could actually get two groups of 10 women who were in fact not part of the existing sex worker cooperative. But the feedback I got was that these women were so ready to throw themselves into something that would take them out of the disrespect associated with sex work. I have to say that what really gets to me as I meet more and more of these women and learn of their stories, that it is not the negativity associated with the work itself...it is their hatred of being disrespected that is at the core of their desire to change

•  Not only did we get the full endorsement of our host club in Ghana for the Global Grant application, but I but together a video conference call between the Ghana head and the Albuquerque head. So another brick in the edifice of getting the necessary funding

• Not only do I have five solid proof-of-concept consults going for the JOBS project, but I got a key influencer within Rotary to meet with me one-on-one finally and take a serious look at the prospects of providing business succession knowledge here. 

• I did not get as much progress as I hoped in moving work forward for two more of the Theodora women. One of my potential clients bailed and the other who is in the US has proven very difficult to get to follow-through. On the other hand, my first lady project is doing very and is so confident in her ability to do this work she is now setting up her own Virtual Personal Assistant business.

So as I look at these results and contemplate the next year the watchword will be patience. Let things happen. Put steady pressure but don't get impatient. All will happen as it should.