ON THE MARGINS IN TAMALE

Septu and students at St. Charles Lwanga.

St.Charles Lwanga Primary school is a Catholic agency school. The school is made up of 810 students with 35 teachers, all from different religious denominations. Sr. Piala Massawe, a Tanzanian, from the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, is the headmistress of the school.
The school provides basic educational rights for all children in and around the location. Without this school, the majority of the students would be travelling long distances to other schools. However, some of the students still walk more than one hour to reach the school. The number of students enrolled increases rapidly every year.

The school experienced two major problems earlier this year: overcrowding of classes and shortage of teachers. Additional buildings recently constructed are now in use by the students. This solves the issue of overcrowding but not the issue of teacher shortage. More than half of the teachers are not getting their salaries which causes the teachers to stay away from the school and find other ways to support their family needs.

Blaise and students - out of class time!

After conducting school assembly on Fridays, we go into some of the classes which have no teacher and we teach. We take the responsibility of being with the class until the end of the day’s school programme.

Beating students is the usual way of disciplining students for misbehaviour or coming late for school. We have not followed this practice and we approach students in a gentle, polite and compassionate manner.

Personal reflection by Blaise
Cycling to school takes an hour and ten minutes. Before reaching the school I meet some students having their breakfast at the small street markets beside the road. Inside the classroom some students were not concentrating and participating in the classroom activities. From what I have experienced, a teacher has to use a stick to warn each child to concentrate and to participate. I am challenged by these behaviors and attitudes.

Before taking too much time to find out what is the cause, I really sympathize with these children and started working with them. I love them despite their individual differences and difficulties. I teach them individually according to the best of their abilities. After some weeks of using this approach, I noticed a great improvement. Those who hardly smiled now smile. Those who could not socialize openly, now mix around with others. Those who struggled with concentration and participation in class and school activities, now show attention and involvement in all class activities.

At ten o’clock break some children would come to me individually and say, “Brother Blaise, give me money or food, I am hungry.” Whether this is a true need or whether it is just because they see Christian Brothers as people who have money, it is a challenge to evaluate and reflect on. The questions are: is it a common practice to beg for food or money? What is it like in their homes? How many of them have parents, guardians or families? And how many of them starve for food and good living conditions?
Live Jesus in our hearts… forever.

MINISTRY AT TAMALE CHILDREN'S HOME

(Left) What to wear today? (Right) Duelling bottles? Essential tasks to start the day.

Tamale Children’s home is one of the ministry places where the novices have been working as volunteers in previous years here in Ghana. This year two of us, Nature Joseph Busiku and Joseph Abass Kamara, are working there every Friday. The orphanage currently is looking after 28 children, 9 infants and 19 others who are of school age. The majority of the people working in the orphanage are females, including 13 mothers. They work in an organized way with three shifts, morning, afternoon and night. Many children kept at the home are brought from the hospitals or local families due to children being abandoned by their own mothers, because of poverty or because the parents have died.
The orphanage has a pre-school for these children, which is also open to the local community. The school has got no proper teaching materials, such as text-books, story books, teacher’s books, materials for games or writing boards for pupils. The teachers working in the school are finding it difficult to teach the children effectively due to this lack of resources. In the face of this, we novices have taken the initiative by providing some materials, such as bottle tops as counters which can be used by the children for counting in mathematics.

What we do at the Orphanage:
· Washing and dressing the children ready for school.
· Bottle feeding, cleaning and changing their dresses, and soothing them if they cry.
· Preparing their beds and helping in doing their laundry.
· Entertaining some of the children who are not in school.
· Helping to teach at the school.


A personal reflection - Nature Joseph Busiku
The reception which I was given on the very first day at the ministry was an impressive experience. I felt I was nourished and inspired in my spiritual growth and relationship with God by a spirit of keenness that I feel every time I am in the home relating with the kids.
Mostly I prepare the children for school, feed the babies, and entertain some kids who are not in school. When it comes to feeding the babies, it gives me a deeper sense of my own experience as a tot and the love and care I was given. As I start to bottle feed the tots and clean them if they have made a mess of the porridge or have urinated or messed themselves, I feel a special sense of connectedness with the kids. It’s during this time when these children experience the feeling of human touch and care which they miss from their biological parents. This challenge brings me happiness and joy in this ministry every Friday.
In the school on Fridays, the children have a few lessons but mostly entertainment activities. I teach them lessons such as counting, reading of the alphabet, drawing and coloring. For entertainment, I energize them with songs and different types of clapping, while outside they play football and other games.
I hope my heart will persist in reaching out with enthusiasm, courage and love towards all children I may encounter in my life.

A memorable experience - Joseph Abass Kamara
“Amaraaba!” This common greeting here means “Welcome”. I would like to share with you an amazing story from my ministry at the children’s home.
One Friday morning while we were busy dressing the children for school, a police officer arrived in a car from the Tamale Teaching Hospital. She had with her a baby girl. According to the officer, the baby had been abandoned shortly after delivery by the mother. When the baby started crying, the doctor and nurses at the hospital started asking for the mother. They asked around the entire ward but could not find the mother. Some of the patients nearby told the doctor that they saw the mother going outside almost an hour before the baby started crying. The lady in charge of the orphanage accepted the baby from the officer and asked us to give the baby a name. After giving her the name Josephine, we all welcomed her with a song.
We have been told recently by a family who visited the orphanage that Josephine will be adopted by them and will go to live with them overseas. May we all remember in our prayers Josephine and the many other abandoned children. We pray also for those working to care for such children in the world.

Launching out into the cultural deep!

Traditional dancers.

At the pito bar, and meeting two local women who make their living by making pots.

Meeting the chief (centre, standing) at Katariga, near Tamale.


All of the novices and most of the formation team at the Tamale novitiate are from somewhere else – other parts of Africa, Oceania and India. So as newcomers to Ghana, most of us needed an introduction to Ghanaian life and culture. A five-day workshop at the Tamale Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies (TICCS) at the end of March provided this opportunity.

TICCS is a valuable resource provided by the Divine Word Missionaries of the Catholic Church, but its unique work provides support well beyond church circles, to many newcomers to Africa and to Ghana, including government and NGO personnel, students and business people.

A mix of morning presentations and afternoon excursions provided a rich experience, offering much information, many challenging insights about culture, and broadening experiences of aspects of life in northern Ghana. Many found the talk on Islam by the secretary of the central mosque in Tamale an eye-opener in regard to Muslim attitudes to Christianity, especially to Jesus and his mother. The visit to a local diviner took most of us into new territory, as diviners are often frowned on by Christians. So just sitting in his consulting room, surrounded by bottles of herbal recipes and various amulets and charms, was an experience that stretched most of us! We found the man, who was, incidentally, also a Muslim, engaging, down-to-earth and interesting, even if we were not quite ready to take our personal questions to him!

Other presentations challenged us in regard to culture shock and cross-cultural understanding, gender relations in Ghana and the growing popularity with the youth of evangelical and charismatic Christian churches, among many topics.

We visited a local chief – one of the very few women chiefs in northern Ghana – and were intrigued by the protocols that had to be observed. We were welcomed to a traditional meal by a family in a village on the outskirts of Tamale, and treated to traditional dancing by a local dance group. And we found time to squeeze in a visit to a pito bar to sample the local beer (or pito).

The week was informative and varied. As well as the valuable information it provided, we were left with new ideas to use as we continue our journey of cultural understanding over these two years. And we were challenged to carry with us the many questions raised by the experience, questions about our own cultures, our own religious faith and, above all, the attitudes and prejudices we all carry with us.

The workshop concluded after five days, but the journey of cultural understanding has a long way to go! Our thanks to Fr. Marek and Sylvester for organising such a stimulating workshop for us.