“Initiative Name Change to ‘Build for Ghana’ — but same great work!”

We are so pleased to update our ICO community that although we’ve updated our initiative name, we are still knee-deep in project work with our great Team Member Frank Appiah-Kubi in Ghana. COVID has affected every aspect of our work, but somehow we are forging forth and making progress.

Today marks the birthday of a very special young man. Samuel Asante was the very first kid that we met on our arrival in Abetenim in January of 2015. He became a close friend of our family, and a classmate to our son Clay. Samuel’s smile is infectious. His kindness and interest and inquisitive nature is so impressive as he also deals with the chronic effects of sickle cell anemia. What would be an easily treated disease here in Canada is a challenging and debilitating one in Ghana. We’ve seen Samuel so sick that he can’t move, nor eat, nor attend school. This past year our initiative has supported Samuel’s mother Elizabeth with funds for his treatment. Samuel has had multiple hospital visits and some medications. Little has had a lasting effect. He visited a natural medicine specialist, and to our delight this course of treatment has given him tremendous relief. This has also resulted in the fantastic news that he has finally passed all of his high school exams. (He was unable to complete his English exam due to deteriorating health, and due to COVID, had to wait a full year to resit the exam). Here is an example of the typical correspondence with Frank who keeps us up-to-date on all of our projects and students.