The Sunyani district

Hi all,

long time and no hear from me as we had no access for the last few days. All well.

The Sunyani district has been a great experience.

We visited St. James’ school which is where St Mary’s, Rathmines have their immersion programme set up. Myself and Geraldine visited an all-girl school, Notre Dame. We were very impressed, the grounds were immaculate, the campus covered a huge area and new building is continuing. This school has received overseas help from many contacts. It was the most prosperous school we have seen. We received a warm welcome from Madame Margaret, the first lay principal.

The Bishop of Sunyani invited us to dinner. It was a very pleasant evening and he was very hospitable even if he did manage to get a dig in about a primary school project that there has been difficulty with - mainly caused by himself.

We visited some really good projects in this area. In a very rural setting we saw how local women have become involved in a mushroom growing project to generate income to get their children educated.
This was the poorest region we have seen, people were dressed in rags. Their homes made of mud and thatch and it seemed that they had nothing. Anne had a look at a few of the babies and they did not seem well. We also went to see where the women got their supply of mushrooms from Bernard Bempah and saw other good enterprise schemes here including a breeding programme for grasscutters (bushrats) - not a pretty site!

From here we travelled on a 7 hour journey to Elmina on the Cape Coast.