The largest student-led movement for clean water access

We spent a total of 4 days in the community helping the Water Brigade build their project. Like any construction project, it was hard and tiring work but it was truly motivating just to be around (and sometimes work alongside) the people there who were always in high spirits despite having to cope with their water issues.

Although the community looked just like any other undeveloped rural town at first glance, it was actually quite an amazing experience just to be there. It was interesting to see how the people there did common things in a culturally different way: from the crops they harvested and how they did it to the kinds of animals they reared and how they handled them. Being there and seeing the people make the best with what little they have really makes you appreciate all the conveniences that we often(sadly) take for granted.

Everything was perfect during our brigade in Ghana and be reassured that it involved all kinds of miserable moments: lunchtime crankiness; the exhausted friend on your shoulder trying to get an extra 10min sleep on the bumpy minivan route to the community, the hard work that made your hands and feet bleed and blister all over; the bitter disappointment of not managing to finish the super- optimistic purpose of your mission, leaving the finish up work to another group. Nonetheless this was part of the beauty of the experience and I wouldn’t take any of it back. My regrets: I wish my heart was bigger so it could fit all the children of Srafa Aboano. I wish I had more hands so I could build a water tank for each household in the community. I wish I could speak Fante so I could have made a better use of the few precious hours we had to feed the children’s hungry eyes for knowledge with what is essential to bit their odds of life spam. I wish that I hadn’t left Srafa Aboano. I wish there were more young people with us to share this experience…

Volunteering today has nothing to do with philanthropy as it did decades ago. Analogically we take more than we give and since giver and receiver cannot be distinguished there is equality between them both. This is the beauty of volunteering in oppose to philanthropy; we cannot look down to other people because in some ways are less fortunate than us. In the process of enabling them to help themselves through sharing our skills and knowledge at the same time we grow as individuals and personas and acquire new skills.