Dear friends and supporters of GLOVO!
GLOVO feels
sorry to keep you all waiting for so long for the new newsletter. Due to some administrative
hitches and the focus on the construction work on GLOVO Academy at the new site
which was to be completed before September, we did not find time to write this
newsletter. The whole GLOVO team hopes
that you all had a great summer and has much news to inform you about from the
last months as we continue to put all effort in helping and brightening the
children’s future academically as well as their living conditions.
Volunteer Project:
Within the last two months, we had to say goodbye to all GLOVO
volunteers. Most of them left between the end of August and the beginning of
September, except Luisa, who stayed for about two more weeks to help at the
GLOVO Academy. Whereas a group of supporting volunteers left, six new
volunteers joined the GLOVO team. Four of them were sent through ARA
(Agricultural and Rural Development Association) and the latest two via
Kultur-Life. While the ARA volunteers are taking part at the GLOVO ICT program,
supporting the current ICT teachers at the GLOVO schools with their time, ideas
and knowledge as well as learning for themselves. We also are happy to welcome
our new office Assistant Secretary, who will be helping at the office, as well
as giving some of her time to the children at the GLOVO Academy nursery. The newly arrived Kultur – Life volunteers
will be teaching at the GLOVO Academy and we are thankful to actually start a
French teaching program in Primary one and two through one of them. Those two volunteers will be in Ghana for
three and six months respectively and we are looking forward to a wonderful
enriching time with all volunteers and say AKWAABA to all of them.
The GLOVO
doors are always open for everyone interested in becoming a part of this great
program and family and for everyone who would like to give their time to the
children in need, helping them on their way through basic education. To get
more information contact Kultur-Life (www.kultur-life.de) or take a look at our homepage www.glovo.org.
Back-to-school program: As the new school term began in
September, GLOVO’s Back-to- school program also started again. As we did the previous
years we tried to support and distribute assorted educational materials to all
the children under the wings of GLOVO. Sadly, we did not have the chance to
provide our children with new school uniforms within the last two years. Many
of them have already grown out of their last set of uniform. To offer those
boys and girls a new uniform and further materials for their education, we
depend on your help. With one Dollar or two Euros, each of us would be able to help
a deprived and needy child get their own fitting school uniform. Please, take a
minute to think about this wish and donate at our blog at www.Betterplace.org to save the situation.
Expansion of the GLOVO Academy: As we told you in our previous newsletters,
we are happy to have a new building containing two class rooms for Primary one
and two of the GLOVO Academy, though partially complete. The two rooms were
opened for teaching and learning when the new academic year started on 11th
September this year. Officially the building is not inaugurated because our
target is not a two-classroom building but a multi-purpose GLOVO Village
comprising several important facilities. We hope to one day welcome you to the
GLOVO Academy Complex, GLOVO clinic, GLOVO ICT center, GLOVO Counseling Center and
GLOVO foster home for abandoned and street children, all located in the Glovo Village.
To realize this dream, the children and we, the GLOVO family, depend on you for
more help. A single building or block will be named after the generous donors
who open their heart for the children in need.
Special
thanks are sent to the MorningStar Family Ministries Inc. in Canada who has shipped
to us a 20-feet container full of items such as mattresses, clothing,
medications and toiletries. We’ve distributed almost half of it to GLOVO
children and their families and can report of many thankful and happy faces.
As all GLOVO
staff members put their time, effort and energy in the brightening of our
children’s future and focus on the GLOVO Academy, our Director, Mr. Williams
Yirenkyi, got the unique chance to go to Germany for three weeks. He takes his
aims and ideas with him to spread the vision and message of GLOVO Ghana over there.
He will have a bilateral discussion with Kultur-Life on volunteering and a
business meeting with GLOVO Germany. With his experiences and focusing on the
children’s health and future, he will try toliaise with sponsors and interested
people, spread GLOVO’s vision and work. This is another further step in
strengthening GLOVO’s work and relationships worldwide.
Monitoring of new volunteers: As GLOVO sees itself as a big family
including all volunteers and staff members, it is a part of the office to check
on the new volunteers’ integration into their new environment and workplace.
Therefore, the office members went on a monitoring and asked about their
belongings and arriving. All of the three ICT program volunteers were welcomed
kindly and openly by the school staff as well as the children. All of them are
looking forward to their time as teachers’ assistants and working together with
those motivated kids and accompany those on their way through education and
growing up.
Last but not least, we hope to keep on walking this road towards our
aims and visions with you all together so as to guide, support and monitor all
those children under our care on their way into a good, successful and healthy
future.
May God bless you all!
Your GLOVO Team,
Ghana
www.glovo.org
Dear friends and supporters of GLOVO!
During the past few months the whole GLOVO Team has
continuously worked to keep on carrying out our various projects so as to
guarantee the steady movement of the Organization with all its good and
important aims of helping to satisfy the needs of all the deprived children
under our care in order to make their future look brighter.
Volunteer
Project: Through the GLOVO Volunteer Project there has been a lot
of movement within the organization during the past couple of months. In May
one of our short-term volunteers from ‘Kultur-Life’, our German partner organization
left us and just throughout the first weeks of June we received four new
volunteers from the same organization. The duration of their stay ranges from
four weeks up to three months. Whilst we are sending some of our volunteers to
different projects, some of them are also working in the GLOVO Academy,
assisting the teachers in caring for the children, teaching them and also
bringing in new ideas in order to help support and improve the work of the
GLOVO staff. Some of them have even brought and donated some games and learning
materials to the school for the usage during lessons and breaks which we are
very thankful for.
We are grateful to see how all of them are working very
hard, bringing in all their efforts, so as to support the work of the organization,
which they are now part of. Furthermore it makes us very happy, that, at the
end of their service, we can send them home with a suitcase, full of new,
exciting experiences, newly achieved knowledge and visions. As we are doing our
best to make their stay over here a memorable one, we hope that our volunteers
have experienced / learned things, which will be helpful for their future
lives.
If you too would like to be one of them, please feel free
to contact ‘Kultur-Life’ (www.kultur-life.de) or
visit our homepage for further information (www.glovo.org).
Expansion
of the GLOVO Academy: As we told you in our last newsletter, GLOVO
now proudly owns a big plot of land close to the recent location of the school,
which we will use for the planned expansion of the academy. During the past few
months we have started building a three classroom block, which is yet to be completed.
It is rather unfortunate that at this point in time we will only be able to
completely finish one of the classrooms until the beginning of the new school
year in September 2012 due to our lack of funds. Though we are praying to find
a way of raising more funds for the completion of the building, we are still
hopeful to at least be able to finish one classroom which we will need for
hosting the new Basic School Class 2, for this year’s Class 1 pupils.
We have also harvested some of the crops from our own newly
established farm on the new land which will be a great support to the school in
case of feeding when school resumes in the second week of September.
GLOVO
School Project: Lately the GLOVO Academy had to deal with
some few hindrances which are mostly still a natural follow-up from the school
being quite new and GLOVO struggling on getting enough funds for covering the
cost of all its meaningful and worthy projects.
First, the salary which we are able to give to the school
staff is comparatively low which caused the resignation of our headmaster. We
haven’t found a new one, so in the meantime our Director Mr. Williams Yirenkyi has to
monitor the school himself. Additionally just some few weeks ago our KG2 Class
Teacher gave birth, so we had to replace her for the period of three months
until she comes back to school. It is a normal thing that, if there are leaves
and newcomers are brought into a team it has to newly reconstruct itself, find areas
of responsibilities, learn how the other ones work and how to work together. Of
course as a result of the expansion of the school, the team will also expand
more and more with the time passing so that there will always be bigger or
smaller changes, but we believe in the strength of the whole GLOVO team
including management and school staff to be able to go through this period hand
in hand and overcome hindrances commonly.
Another problematic issue is that the management was forced
to increase the school feeding and transportation charges in order to be able
to cover all the huge costs. Due to that some of our students from one of the
rural villages have stopped attending school, because even though the increase
of the feeding charges was only small, some of the families cannot afford to
pay this amount. This is exactly the opposite of our aim to make quality
education available for everyone, no
matter where they come from and what the financial situation of the family is
like, so as to provide all those deprived children with one of the biggest
childhood treasures – education – which will make their future look brighter.
For that reason we are hoping to be able to find a way for those students to
come back to school as soon as possible.
Third
Anniversary of the Organization: Three Years ago around this
time of the year Glorious Vision Orphans was founded by our Director Mr.
Williams Yirenkyi. Though we couldn’t celebrate this anniversary, for us it is
a reason to remember where we are coming from, what we have been able to
achieve over the past years full of ups and downs and what we are still aiming
for. Over the time we started a lot of worthy projects which had an impact on
the lives of many children and their families for example the ‘Health Insurance
Project’, the “Child Support’ and also not forgetting the ‘School Project’. Big
projects such as the expansion of the GLOVO Academy or the ‘Asifaw Foundation’
need a lot of patience, time, work and a strong team in order to become what we
want them to be in the future but we believe that we can get much closer to our
goal if only we all keep on working wholeheartedly together. Even those small
things like our ‘End of Year Parties’ or organized soccer games shouldn’t be
missing here because they brought the GLOVO family together and put smiles on
everyone’s faces.
Again we want to show our appreciation to those who have
made such great efforts in order to support our work in one way or the other: A
big THANK YOU to the whole GLOVO team, our donors and volunteers. Without you
we wouldn’t have made it so far in such a short period of time.
Well-done
To Volunteers: A small Get-together was organized by
Management for the long term volunteers whose internship period expired in
August. The short term volunteers were also invited to share in the joy.
Certificates were presented to the volunteers for a good service rendered to
humanity. We say bravo!
Passing
away of Glovo Child: We regret to announce, that GLOVO child,
Comfort Sam, has died. She was diagnosed of kidney failure and died two weeks
after admission at Ghana’s premier hospital, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in
Accra. Management attended the funeral and made a cash donation to the parents
of the late Glovo child.
Last but not least, we hope to keep on walking this road
towards our aims and visions with you all together so as to guide, support and
monitor all those children under our care on their way into a good, successful
and healthy future.
May God bless you all!
Your GLOVO Team,
Ghana
www.glovo.org
April 2012
Dear friends of GLOVO!
Another two
months have passed by and as always we now would like to brief you on our work
and the recent outcome of it through this newsletter.
House-to-House Monitoring: During the last couple of months we
have been very busy visiting all the GLOVO children in and around Swedru in the
cause of our House-to-House Monitoring Project. When we went for this project
the last time we already realized that one of the main problems most families
are facing in cases of supporting the education of their respective child, is
the lack of electricity in many of the rural communities we are operating in.
Because of this it becomes very difficult for the children to do their homework
and also learn in the evenings. Of course GLOVO saw this problem and we are
convinced that it is very important to address this issue as best as we can. As
a result of that we donated study lamps during our recent monitoring activities
to those who don’t have access to electricity. All the children and their
families were very grateful for this kind of support and we hope to be hearing
about positive changes the next time we are going there.
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| Franzi in Ghana |
Additionally
we lately have been able to distribute food items study lamps and toiletries to
all our children. The donation for this activity was raised by Morningstar
Family Ministry and two of our former volunteers Simon Ansel and Noomi and at
this point we wish to truly express our appreciation for that, because we
believe that even the smallest donation can make a big difference, can put
smiles on the faces of all the children under our care.
Visit of Simon: In the beginning of March one of our
former volunteers, Simon Ansel, returned to Ghana for the duration of one
month, two years after he completed his volunteer service. Within the period of
his stay over here he visited the GLOVO office several times, joined us for
House-to-House Monitoring, travelled to Asifaw with our Director Williams and
of course visited the GLOVO Academy.
 | |
| Lawrencia |
We are very
happy to see that former volunteers keep visiting us because it shows how much
they still feel connected to GLOVO and it as well expresses their appreciation
for our work. Besides that we also want to say thank you to Simon for making big
efforts to raise some funds in order to support GLOVO projects. Firstly his
donation aided the purchase of the new land for the expansion of the GLOVO
School and secondly through these donations we were able to supply all the
GLOVO children with food items and toiletries as mentioned above.
Volunteer Project: Just as we told you in our past
newsletters, the GLOVO Volunteer Project is growing steadily. We have had so
many volunteers from all over the world working at GLOVO Academy. We are always
very happy to welcome a new volunteer to the GLOVO family, because every single
person brings in new ideas, perceptions and attitudes. As a result of the
cultural and personal exchange, that naturally takes place, the quality of the
work we are doing here is improving bit by bit.
So if you
would also like to volunteer with GLOVO Projects, please contact ‘Kultur-Life’. For further information and articles of some of our
volunteers feel free to check out our homepage (www.glovo.org).
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| Glovo Academy |
GOVO Academy Expansion: We are very happy to be able to tell
you at this point that by now we have been able to purchase the new land for
the expansion of the GLOVO School. We were very lucky that the owner of the
land was willing to set up a contract with us, which made it possible for GLOVO
to only hand a part payment – the amount our budget allowed us to spend - to that
person. The total cost of the land is not less than the sum of GHC 9,500.00 and at this point we wish to express all our appreciation and
gratitude to Judith Mletzko, who has been able to raise a lot of funds for this
project. Judith was a German volunteer in the year 2009 at the Government
Hospital here in Swedru. She heard about GLOVO through some of her volunteer
friends, got very curious about our work and as a result of that came to visit
us in November 2011. She started supporting GLOVO Projects from then on. Our
thanks go to Judith and all the people who have been willing to come to our aid
in trying to better the lives of all those orphaned, handicapped and vulnerable
children from Swedru and its surroundings.
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| Judith loves children |
Health Insurance Projects: Just recently we carried out two big
Health Insurance Registration Projects so as to ensure instant and quality
health care for those who can not afford the payment of the Health Insurance (2
Euros/ child/ year). Both projects were supported by donations some of our
volunteers had been able to raise and we are very thankful for this kind
gesture.
-
GLOVO Academy: The first exercise that we have been
doing took place on March 30th 2012 at the GLOVO Academy. Here we registered
about 80 of the school children and additionally the teachers onto the National
Health Insurance Scheme.
-
Asifaw: On April 10, 2012 we travelled to
Asifaw village with three GLOVO Executives and four of our volunteers in order
to carry out the second exercise. Once the officials had arrived we were happy
to be able to have about 100 of the Primary School children being registered
and it was great to see that quite some of the rural dwellers/ parents of the
children had heard about this exercise. As a result of that many of them also
showed up on the day GLOVO had brought the officials to the village so as to
register themselves.
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| Registration of Health Insurance in Asifaw |
The GLOVO Team also used the chance of being there on that day to discuss
with the Community Representatives about the achievements as well as the way
forward concerning Asifaw projects. Furthermore we hiked to the Umbrella Rock
again in order to witness the developments that had taken place at this site.
It was truly a big and amazing surprise and those who had been there could
hardly believe that it was the same rock because by now all the undergrowth had
been cleared away so that we were able to climb to the top platform of the
rock. From here we had a fabulous view over the whole area including all the
small villages and we could just imagine how nice it would be to enjoy a picnic
up there in the middle of the beautiful nature of Ghana. We believe that this
Umbrella Rock is an awesome tourist site and it is totally worth going there, also
to see the waterfall and maybe to actively experience the village life for some
time. We are hoping that once we promote
it people will be coming there, so that the village people can raise some funds
through this themselves, for bettering their own lives.
Last but not least we wish to inform you that just lately we have set up a new GLOVO homepage (www.glovo.org) which includes many new features, information about all our projects, articles about the recent outcome of our work, volunteer articles etc. So please don’t hesitate to take a look at it and maybe you too will want to support one of our projects in one way or the other and join our family for the worthy means of all the deprived children under our care. For further information we are also always happy to help you out.
Last but not least we wish to inform you that just lately we have set up a new GLOVO homepage (www.glovo.org) which includes many new features, information about all our projects, articles about the recent outcome of our work, volunteer articles etc. So please don’t hesitate to take a look at it and maybe you too will want to support one of our projects in one way or the other and join our family for the worthy means of all the deprived children under our care. For further information we are also always happy to help you out.
Once again
we thank those of you who have been supporting us over the past years. Without
your help GLOVO wouldn’t be what it already is, a steadily growing NGO.
The sunniest
greetings to all of you from Agona Swedru, Ghana
Your GLOVO Team
February 2012
Dear friends and supporters of GLOVO!
First of all the whole GLOVO Team wants to
wish all of you a belated very happy new year. May it be full of blessings and
joy.
We hope you
have all taken off well for the New Year and through this newsletter we would
like to brief you on how GLOVO started into 2012. A year which will hopefully
be a big success for us; a year in which we all want to work hard together for
the important means of all the disabled, orphaned and less-privileged children
under our care; a year full of good projects; a year full of happiness!
End of Year Party: We were very happy and thankful that
on December 28th 2011 we were able to have an End of Year Party for
all the GLOVO children. The basic idea behind that was to gather all the
children under our care so as to put smiles on their faces and to take off for
the New Year all together. Through this we want to once more express our
appreciation and gratitude to the Manager and staff of the, close to Swedru
located, ‘AAA Restaurant’, who kindly sponsored and organized the whole party
for us. They served us with drinks and food, which perfectly concluded those
joyful hours we were given with the kids. We believe that this day was a great
conclusion for a year full of ups and downs. It was a true blessing for
everyone and you could basically see it under the motto: Where you give a
smile, there you get one back. 
Volunteer Project: I think as you already know, we are
working on establishing our own volunteer project and until now the outcome is
pretty good. So far we are cooperating with two different organizations. First
of all the German organization ‘Kultur-Life’, from which we received our first
ever own GLOVO volunteer in December 2011. Lore has successfully completed her
service in January 2012.She was very satisfied with her stay here in Ghana and
wants to still support GLOVO, now that she is back in Germany. In March 2012 we
will receive
the next volunteer
from this organization and are just as excited as we were the first time about working
together as well as sharing ideas with another volunteer. The second
organization we are cooperating with is ‘AISEC’, which is operating worldwide.
On January 9th 2012 two new volunteers, one from Germany and the other
from Australia, were brought to the GLOVO office by one of the organization’s
staff. One of them is teaching at GLOVO Academy and the other one has been
working at the Church of Christ School until he completed his service and left Ghana
after six weeks.
Apart from the well
appreciated huge efforts the volunteers are distributing towards GLOVO, the sharing
of ideas and the cultural exchange are only a few aspects of the positive
influences the work with volunteers has on GLOVO. We are indeed very glad about
the ongoing process of this project. If you would like to volunteer with GLOVO,
please don’t hesitate to contact the above named organizations. (www.kultur-life.de)
Visit of American friends: On February 12th, 2012
two American friends arrived in Ghana for the first time in order to visit GLOVO.
On Monday the 13th they first of all came to our office, where they
were given a welcome address by Williams Yirenkyi, the Executive Director. After
that he took them to some of our project sites, so that they could learn more
about GLOVO and its various actions. They were very impressed with the work GLOVO
is doing. Our American friends spent the following days with the Director,
showing them a few places in Ghana until they left Ghana on Friday, February
17, 2012.
The School Project: Of course the GLOVO Academy has also
started freshly into the new year but whilst the school children are coming to
school as usual and the school staff is keeping up the hard work, we are still
having a hard time raising funds for the daily use (staff salaries, food,
fueling of the school car etc.). Additionally we are still struggling with
getting enough funds that will make it possible for us to buy the land, where
we are planning to move the school for expansion. Even though there are a lot
of hindrances in our way we still so believe in the need of what we are heading
for - caring for and supporting vulnerable, orphans and disables in bettering
their lives and helping them to become as self-reliant as possible by furnishing
them with quality education - because our aim is what is best for the children
under our care.
Expenditure of our support programs: Just a few weeks ago the Director of
GLOVO traveled to the northern parts of Ghana for a whole week, because we are
now thinking about and planning to also operate in the Upper East Region of the
country. During his travels Mr. Yirenkyi has visited some potential new project
areas for GLOVO and when he returned he carried many new impressions with him
and brought them into the organization. The GLOVO Team thinks it is a good and
very worthy idea to also start projects like the registration of children unto
the National Health Insurance Scheme in those areas of Ghana. We hope that
through the next newsletter we will already be able to furnish you with further
information concerning this issue.
The Asifaw Foundation: I’m pretty sure that probably most of you are
wondering what Asifaw might be. So please let me last but not least present our
most recent and new founded project to you. Asifaw is a very small village
which is located near Korfuridua in the Eastern Region of Ghana. It is the home
town of Williams Yirenkyi, our Executive Director. The people living in this
village are very less privileged because the road access is quite bad so that
hardly any car comes there and they neither have electricity nor running water
(they don’t even have a well). So now, coming to the end of last year, Mr.
Yirenkyi had the intention of also supporting the people from his own home town
aside of operating in and around Swedru.
The plan is
to first of all try to register as many children and parents as the available GLOVO
funds allow us to, onto the National Health Insurance Scheme and furthermore to
raise funds for the construction of a borehole for the village. Aside of that
it is our aim to care for those children just as we do it here in Swedru and
its surrounding villages by supporting their
schooling (providing learning materials etc.) as well as
helping to satisfy their basic needs. Through the provision of mosquito nets we
want to contribute something to the active health prevention. Besides that
there will certainly be more project ideas be coming up in the future and we
pray that our budget will allow us to realize as many of those ideas as
possible. Yet we are very convinced that this project is totally worth all the
efforts and we are always happy about any kind of support.
A pretty interesting thing
about Asifaw is that very close to the village there are natural attractions
like a huge umbrella rock, a small waterfall and various caves. When we found
out about this, we soon had the idea of developing those places as tourist
sites, so that the village people can raise funds themselves through this for helping
to better their own lives. Apart from that it will also be quite an experience
for strangers to be part of the village life for some time (visit some of the
home, see the school, be part of one of the very typical entertainment
activities (drumming, dancing, singing) of the people etc.).
Apart from the
Director going to Asifaw by himself to discuss the project details, on February
4, 2012 we went to Asifaw with a group of three GLOVO Executives and eight
German Volunteers in order to raise some funds for the Health Insurances as
well as to see the place and through that to commonly develop further ideas for
the future performance of this meaningful project. After we first of all did a
clean-up exercise and socialized with the children and adults from the village,
they took us to the above mentioned attractions. The people also showed us
where they receive their water (drinking, washing, bathing, cooking) from and
it actually was quite shocking to most of us, when we saw how people were
coming along with their bowl, fetching water from the water hole, in which the
water is truly not clean at all and drinking it like that right away. Just like
in this case, where all of us could really see the importance of the
construction of a borehole, the visit to Asifaw village was as we think quite a
success because firstly we had a chance to get closer to the village people and
secondly through having seen the place, it is now easier for us to assess the
situation and to plan further actions.
Please feel
free to check out the Asifaw Foundation homepage for further detailed
information. http://www.asifaw.blogspot.com/
To finally
sum this up now, we can say that the first couple of months in the new year
have been full of changes, full of new ideas and actions, whilst we of course
still work hard on our already established projects to ensure to keep up the
support we have been providing over the last years for many needy children. The
vision of GLOVO is what we are heading for and within this we truly appreciate
the support some of you have been contributing to us – to all those children -
in one way or the other.
February 2012
The GLOVO
Team
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