Back in Accra

Monday morning. My first meeting in the office after a couple of weeks out on the road making videos for the InterACT! project and visiting some schools and placements in the Ashanti region of Ghana with the people who run the house where I live in Accra, Volunteer Abroad.

It was good to be back at TfaC's tidy offices upstairs off a little balcony in Labadi. Owusu, Johnson and Amanor (Linda is away in Togo) are funny, enthusiastic and occaisonally very silly. They are all so committed to their jobs too: all had worked over the weekend; Amanor stopped off at an in-service training session on his way to a wedding on Saturday.

You often hear stories in Ghana about corruption, about NGO money wasted, projects not working. I think most of them are exaggerated but even if they're not I've only seen positive things at TfaC in terms of they way its staff are so committed to the cause, so determined, so passionate. They're also, importantly, really fun; able to take and make a joke; and kind too.

The Monday morning meeting at TfaC is a chance for the team to come together, compare notes and discuss the week ahead. Amanor, Owusu and Eric all report back from their weekend visits.

We discuss the mobilisation of participants for the Amasaman project and the need to ensure that we don't just mobilise a load of young people who are already in school, who already aware of HIV/AIDS, of how to avoid teenage pregnancy. It's easy to find those kids - they're enthusiastic, willing to come to workshops regularly, but they're not the focus of this project: we'd much rather be working with those young people who have low levels of literacy, rarely attend school and are most at risk from the dangers posed by unsafe sex.

The rest of my week will be spent catching up with Nii, Collins, Diana, Forster, Amanda, Reggie and Susan and creating their response to the video postcards sent by the UK participants in the InterACT! project. It's been a real thrill to receive the videos made by the Uk participants - all of which are wonderful and thoughtful. I know that the facilitators here are really excited about seeing them and replying.