Due to the concentration of poverty and lack of educational opportunities in West Africa, Empowering Nations is now sponsoring a project in Ghana for the summer of 2006.  Africa faces many obstacles in its efforts to improve early childhood education, such as a lack of resources, inequitable access to services, the absence or insufficiency of mechanisms to ensure quality in training and provision, and the low level of skills of early childhood education personnel. Poverty, civic conflicts and prevalence of HIV/AIDS make the region particularly vulnerable and obstruct the building of a sustainable, high quality early childhood provision. Because of this, African governments are increasingly attempting to mobilize private, voluntary, and community-based partners to promote and strengthen early childhood education.

As such, Empowering Nations is pleased to partner with Voluntary Child Aid, a nonprofit organization with offices in the Netherlands, the UK, and Ghana.  Voluntary Child Aid was founded in 2004 by individuals committed to increasing education in Ghana in order to eradicate poverty among children.  Working in the Northern and Ashanti regions of Ghana, the Empowering Nations team will have the opportunity to help in the construction of schools, to teach children in nursery, primary, and secondary schools, and to work in orphanages, hospitals and village communities supporting health care and disease prevention programs. 
Volunteers will be living with host families so that they can become immersed in the culture of those they are helping.  The minimum time in-country must be at least four weeks. 

To receive the Ghana Volunteer Information Packet, please email us at empoweringnations@gmail.com.

To learn more about the mission and programs of Voluntary Child Aid, please visit www.voluntarychildaid.org.