A series of fantastic events.

Originally posted on Luke's Mystical Adventures:
Last time I wrote I briefly updated you readers on what happened between me getting here and going to ada foah, since then there have been a few things that have happened and I will run you through these one by one before giving a brief overview of…

Summer school, football coaching and a haircut

Apologies for the delay in the latest blog post, but since I last wrote seven new volunteers have arrived and five of those have left. They’ve been completing a large variety of work. Chris Minch has settled in well to the role of Assistant Volunteer Coordinator. His time has been taken up by airport pickups, […]

A busy two weeks

Two weeks already? Ghana has a fantastic way of making time go incredibly slow and fast at the same time. When you are waiting for a tro-tro (mini bus) to fill up, knocking back unwanted offers of meat on a stick, in the mid-day heat and humidity, it feels like the seconds are minutes and the minutes […]

Ghana, Ghana, Ghana!

“Three months in Ghana? Wow, that’s a long time,” is the phrase I’ve been hearing a lot recently. Sure, three months in West Africa isn’t the typical summer vacation but I know from experience that the time will zip by in a flurry of volunteers, projects, blog posts and Azonto moves. This summer I’m acting […]

The Musings of an African Volunteering in Africa

The Musings of an African Volunteering in Africa. An eloquent insight into this issue.

Are volunteers really needed for the Champions League final?

Before reading this post, here are a few stats about UEFA, the UEFA Champions League and myself. The estimated gross commercial revenue of the 2012-13 UEFA Champions League and UEFA Super Cup is €1.34bn, from UEFA.com. The last time the UEFA Champions League final was held at Wembley the cheapest ticket available, including the booking fee, was […]

My day as a City Year London Red Jacket

“Yes!” was the instant response when asked if I would like to spend a morning at Sebright Primary School in Hackney shadowing a team of City Year London volunteers. Having heard so much about the fantastic work the “Red Jackets” do it would be great to see them in action. City Year London class themselves […]

A rant about overseas volunteering

For those of you who know me you might be a bit surprised to see the title of this blog. Through my work with KickStart Ghana and other roles I am normally telling everyone how fantastic volunteering is and why they should get involved. I also espouse the benefits of overseas volunteering and tell people […]

Hurricane Sandy and the contribution of volunteers

The impact and devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy has, quite rightly, been at the forefront of the news over the past few days. However, whenever such a disaster occurs it always amazes me how quickly people come to the fore, often risking their own safety, to help others in their community. We saw this after the riots […]

Y The Fright Not?!? The Youth Funding Network

I discovered The Funding Network at an event celebrating Nelson Mandela Day. They are an organisation that enables individuals to join together to fund social change projects. It turned out that they also have an off-shoot, The Youth Funding Network. This sounded like something that I might want to be a part of and decided […]

KickStart Ghana Party 2012

On Saturday 13th October we hosted our annual party celebrating the successes of KickStart Ghana, giving a big thanks to those that have volunteered with us and explaining why people might want to get involved with our work in the future. Over the past four years we have many successes, here are few we discussed at […]

Response to voluntourism article

Further to a recent article in The Beaver (the London School of Economics student newspaper), week of 9th October, page 23, looking at the pros and cons of voluntourism I sent the editors the following letter. Re: Voluntourism in Senegal It was great to read about Felicity’s recent volunteering experiences in Senegal and the benefits she felt […]