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.