I am finished with this trip and am making the long way home. I have gotten to know the major routings one can take going to and returning from Accra. This leg is the Turkish Airlines leg through Istanbul and Chicago. It takes a long time with an overnight layover in Chicago. But on the other hand, you get to stay at the Turkish Airlines Business Lounge which is as over-the-top as any I have ever visited. The food is amazing and varied. Plus when I went to get a shower (another perk the international business lounges usually have), I found out they have 'Private Suites' - rooms with a small desk and an honest to god bed!. With an 8 hour layover, I took advantage of it and got a good restful nap.
As my last post stated, we are making such progress and I fully expect things to continue that way. We have a couple of new users (in a future post I will describe a bit more about 'users' versus 'donors'. As soon as GG gets his not-for-profit entity finished with the last legalities, we will start the stipends for the ladies and Mr. W will set up the training boot camp.
I was even working this weekend. I gave a couple of the ladies some coaching sessions on time management and budgeting and M a marketing and sales plan to try and get more foreign business visitor logistics facilitation clients as she is doing for me.
Then on Sunday before we left, GG, M and I were bringing yet another of the ladies onboard to be GG's personal assistant...something he surely can use with all that is going on. My strategy with our ladies is to try and get them something meaningful they can do AND get paid for as soon as possible. This is the fourth out of six. Although I know we need to start doing all money transfers in an official way now, I felt it was important to break the rule and get his woman, who we could see is really starting to make the leap in her attitude and behavior. So after an hour of discussion, I gave her some USD as a 'signing bonus' (and I did discuss this with Wife before I did it for a change so at least I was not totally out of compliance!). The look on her face - a combination of disbelief, excitement, and determination - told me that I had made the right decision.
Afterward, she reiterated just what an amazing opportunity it was for her and the others. She related yet again how the slippery slope into doing sex work left one feeling so embarrassed and disrespected. She told me that the kind of stipend we are proposing is serious money in Ghana...that people with Masters Degrees can find it hard to even make $500 a month. I think I will do another post and put out a more detailed explanation of the overall business concept.
From this point on we will be entering a different phase. We are now fully looking to implement the concepts we've developed. I suspect the nature of my travel will change in accordance with the needs of the development of the business between the U.S. and Ghana. The ride continues.
Monday, February 24, 2020
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Ghana Trip Five - Breakthrough
It has been a week of major steps forward. The most important being the attitude and focus of our participating women.
I have mentioned in past posts about 'cultural and behavioral change' as being one of the major challenges to the success of the project. That has manifested over the time I've been working here in the difficulty getting our participants to meetings on time. And I don't mean like being ten or fifteen minutes late. We're talking about people coming an hour or more late.
It came to a head last week when after our first meeting I really voiced my displeasure and pretty much said that they were crazy if they thought I was going to kill myself raising money for this project if they were not going to take it seriously. I thought I was really letting them have it but a couple of women who have worked more with my on jobs said that by African standards, I was still pretty soft. (On a side note, white men are considered to be soft -meaning easy to get to cave in.)
Nonetheless, at the first meeting, EVERYONE was there early. And not just a couple of minutes early. Like 30 to 40 minutes early. All were dressed business-like. The meeting, which was a planning session, we had everyone completely engaged and participating.
The second meeting was very important because we went to meet W, the man who is donating the computer training facility. Again all were on time. All took part in that meeting as participants, not just silent skeptics. Both my partner and I were impressed and happy. W's presentation to the ladies was powerful. They connected with him. I think this is going to be a strong addition to the change management we are trying to achieve.
On another note, we had a separate meeting with a Rotarian who is an accountant. One of our participants has a bookkeeping background. We established the basis for setting up the accounting and compliance record-keeping systems that GG will need with his entities here in order for us in the US to be legal about sending money.
And while all this has been going on, I had multiple meetings with various business owners and advisors, working on the other project, the original one of increasing jobs by facilitating small business improvement. It appears we are getting a critical mass of people who are seeing the opportunity and are willing to test some of my ideas for facilitating change beyond one-on-one work. So that is pretty cool too.
We are shooting a second, much shorter video today to provide a testimonial of the life-changing power Theodora offers. Saturday and Sunday, I am going to get all the follow-up action items from the trip done (lots of documenting, writing and creating reports) so all is done before I leave Sunday night. I have already been on calls back home, moving projects along, setting up trips for both paid work and fundraising. Need to hit the ground running when I get back.
I have mentioned in past posts about 'cultural and behavioral change' as being one of the major challenges to the success of the project. That has manifested over the time I've been working here in the difficulty getting our participants to meetings on time. And I don't mean like being ten or fifteen minutes late. We're talking about people coming an hour or more late.
It came to a head last week when after our first meeting I really voiced my displeasure and pretty much said that they were crazy if they thought I was going to kill myself raising money for this project if they were not going to take it seriously. I thought I was really letting them have it but a couple of women who have worked more with my on jobs said that by African standards, I was still pretty soft. (On a side note, white men are considered to be soft -meaning easy to get to cave in.)
Nonetheless, at the first meeting, EVERYONE was there early. And not just a couple of minutes early. Like 30 to 40 minutes early. All were dressed business-like. The meeting, which was a planning session, we had everyone completely engaged and participating.
The second meeting was very important because we went to meet W, the man who is donating the computer training facility. Again all were on time. All took part in that meeting as participants, not just silent skeptics. Both my partner and I were impressed and happy. W's presentation to the ladies was powerful. They connected with him. I think this is going to be a strong addition to the change management we are trying to achieve.
On another note, we had a separate meeting with a Rotarian who is an accountant. One of our participants has a bookkeeping background. We established the basis for setting up the accounting and compliance record-keeping systems that GG will need with his entities here in order for us in the US to be legal about sending money.
And while all this has been going on, I had multiple meetings with various business owners and advisors, working on the other project, the original one of increasing jobs by facilitating small business improvement. It appears we are getting a critical mass of people who are seeing the opportunity and are willing to test some of my ideas for facilitating change beyond one-on-one work. So that is pretty cool too.
We are shooting a second, much shorter video today to provide a testimonial of the life-changing power Theodora offers. Saturday and Sunday, I am going to get all the follow-up action items from the trip done (lots of documenting, writing and creating reports) so all is done before I leave Sunday night. I have already been on calls back home, moving projects along, setting up trips for both paid work and fundraising. Need to hit the ground running when I get back.
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Ghana Trip Five - A Non-Work Interlude
Because of my better scheduling with more rest in the beginning and a slightly lighter schedule during the week, I was much more rested for this coming weekend. Whereas in the past on weekends here, I have mostly collapsed and recuperated, I was up for trying something different this trip. Therefore, when M asked if I wanted to accompany her on a photo shoot, I was up to give it a try.
First, a little bit of background. When I was first introduced to M last year, her self-image and self-confidence were incredibly low. But shortly after we met, she had an opportunity to have pictures taken by a professional photographer. I remember her being absolutely terrified before she went and absolutely ecstatic afterward. The photographer evidently was great at getting her to understand her innate attractiveness. Ever since, she has loved to have her picture taken (like many young women here she is very, very active on social media like Instagram) and when she has the money, she will hire someone to do a shoot of her.
In this case, they were heading out of town to go to a resort about two hours away and were going to do a variety of different types of shots including some business shots for her personal assistant business and some more glamour type of shots. The photographer had me check a number of YouTube videos on model posing before we went.
It was a very, very long day. Hot. I was amazed at how M held up over the day. She had brought about 6 different outfits and changed her make up in between. The picture taking was quite enlightening. I think I really learned a lot and grew. The photographer even let me handle some poses and shots which was cool.
I ended up with a lot of pictures and hope to have time to go through them and post a few in the near future.
Back to work tomorrow!
First, a little bit of background. When I was first introduced to M last year, her self-image and self-confidence were incredibly low. But shortly after we met, she had an opportunity to have pictures taken by a professional photographer. I remember her being absolutely terrified before she went and absolutely ecstatic afterward. The photographer evidently was great at getting her to understand her innate attractiveness. Ever since, she has loved to have her picture taken (like many young women here she is very, very active on social media like Instagram) and when she has the money, she will hire someone to do a shoot of her.
In this case, they were heading out of town to go to a resort about two hours away and were going to do a variety of different types of shots including some business shots for her personal assistant business and some more glamour type of shots. The photographer had me check a number of YouTube videos on model posing before we went.
It was a very, very long day. Hot. I was amazed at how M held up over the day. She had brought about 6 different outfits and changed her make up in between. The picture taking was quite enlightening. I think I really learned a lot and grew. The photographer even let me handle some poses and shots which was cool.
I ended up with a lot of pictures and hope to have time to go through them and post a few in the near future.
Back to work tomorrow!
Friday, February 14, 2020
Ghana - Trip Five - We Are Still Accelerating!
It is exactly a week since I arrived. Because of price considerations, I hardly ever take the same air routing from trip to trip. As I got a free ticket using miles I reprised, my very first flight trip which was taking South African Airways from Washington, D.C. to Accra. This is far and away the shortest and most body-friendly way to go as your trans-Atlantic leg is last and goes directly to Accra and you arrive Ghana in the morning. All other routes take you to Europe and you don't arrive until the evening after another long leg from Europe to Ghana.
As a result, I had almost a whole extra day for recuperation before starting work. I have been glad to have it. Even though I have kept my schedule more limited than earlier trips, there is still so much going on that it has been very tiring. I will give you a brief summary.
As a result, I had almost a whole extra day for recuperation before starting work. I have been glad to have it. Even though I have kept my schedule more limited than earlier trips, there is still so much going on that it has been very tiring. I will give you a brief summary.
- With funding starting to come in for the Theodora Project, our biggest needs were a place to hold training and do work, computers, internet connection and completing a curriculum. Much as an initial couple of benefactors have catapulted our fundraising in the U.S., so here a benefactor in the form of the Rotary Club President supporting our project has stepped up. He has a fully equipped computer training room, with computers and high-speed internet access. He is providing these free-of-charge. And he has a training program for people with no familiarity with a computer. Finally, he is engaging himself with my Partner GG in the development of a curriculum. Now we just need to resolve the GG's local entity formation to be able to advance funds necessary to get the training started.
- At the same time, we are getting more users in the United States for the services we want to provide. We (my one actual producing member of the group, M, and I) had two phone calls on Wednesday with prospective users. I thought these were just to do introductions and for people to interview M for consideration of the work to be done. NO! Both want work done and done quickly! And the work they desired done is exactly the kinds of roles and tasks we had anticipated our services would fit. For the moment M can handle this though she will be busy (but also making more money than ever in her life!). But we are going to need to get more people up and running.
- I should say a little bit more about our benefactor (I would call him actually a partner) here, Mr. W. He has been more than just someone who wants to do good. We had a meeting with GG, myself, M and Mr. W. W who is only in his forties and owns a substantial company, was so passionate about some of the issues Ghana was dealing with. We decided we would show him the video (with M's concurrence as we said we would not show it in Ghana - but M feels W is a real partner and understander of the circumstances). He was left speechless with emotion. When he could speak he said, "Yes, we cannot show this in Ghana for there will be too many people who will judge." He further said, "When the ladies come to do the training, only I will know their background. No one else in my company needs to know any details." This a testament to the character of the man and his commitment.
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
Preparing For Ghana 5
I will be leaving Thursday bright and early for my fifth trip to Ghana. It is not quite exactly one year from the date of my first, mildly terrifying trip. It is really a bit difficult to grasp how much has happened in just a year.
I arrived in Ghana that first trip not knowing anyone, with no meetings scheduled and a vague idea of a concept for aiding job development. Now twelve months later, we have a rather groundbreaking project to assist women out of sex trade. We have already had success with the concept with at least one individual. We have our own not-for-profit entity. We have successfully raised money. I am going back focused on putting in place the requirements to actually start the program. And oddly enough, despite it not being a focal point, the original concept I had is gaining traction too!
It will be a very busy trip but it will be very productive as well. AND we will be one step closer to getting the rest of the women in our Theodora pilot group into the program.
I arrived in Ghana that first trip not knowing anyone, with no meetings scheduled and a vague idea of a concept for aiding job development. Now twelve months later, we have a rather groundbreaking project to assist women out of sex trade. We have already had success with the concept with at least one individual. We have our own not-for-profit entity. We have successfully raised money. I am going back focused on putting in place the requirements to actually start the program. And oddly enough, despite it not being a focal point, the original concept I had is gaining traction too!
It will be a very busy trip but it will be very productive as well. AND we will be one step closer to getting the rest of the women in our Theodora pilot group into the program.
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