The Senase Project

Hey there everyone.  The voyagers I traveled to the Senase village with in Ghana were real serious about the hospital project (the project I wrote about in my last post).  We had a meeting last night about the project, and most of our group showed up.  Everyone who did was really stoked for the project too.  Casey and Tyler are in talks with the Senase Project, people from the Fall 2010 Voyage who originally started the group to build a school in the village.  They redid their whole framework to incorporate the hospital project.  There's still a lot to do before things really get going, but it's really happening.  Everyone wants to have fundraisers in their communities and schools to raise money, and there are some other, bigger, jobs too.  There's essentially three tiers:  Casey and Tyler who are really devoted to the cause, a second tier of people who want to get more involved, though they have less responsibility, and a third tier of people who aren't a part of the organization officially, but still want to fundraise and help out.  I want to get more involved, and I have become more excited about this project than I originally thought I would be, so I said I would be a part of the second tier, working on their finances.  I'm not really doing finances, per se, but I would more just log in donations and keep a spreadsheet of checks and how much money the project has raised.  I'm pretty organized so it should work out.  This project is still in the development stages so I have no idea what will actually happen with it, but I'm excited. 

Other than that, we'll be in Cape Town on Thursday.  I have plans to work with Habitat for Humanity, visit Table Mountain, Robben Island, and go shark cage diving.  I can't wait!

I learned yesterday that Americans alone spend $1.5 billion dollars on chocolate on Valentine's Day.  Ghana produces 70% of the world's cacao and Hershey's chocolate still uses child labor.  We had a letter writing campaign last week, also started by Casey, sending letters to CEO David West, urging him to go fair trade. 

                                                         

1.5 BILLION dollars on Valentines Day alone...