Enliven Mama Africa Step One - Victory

      
           
 December 1, 2014 marks the largest day of accomplishment yet for Enliven Mama Africa. Maxwell Donkor, the EMA Director in Ghana, went to Besease and saw 14 single mothers be matriculated into the seamstress program of the Integrated Community Center for Employable Skills. The women and the community were overjoyed. I (Sarah Bibbey, the EMA Director in the USA), was able to witness their joy over Skype.

For me, the most beautiful part of the experience was hearing from the women I have known since the beginning. Rosina, Mavis, and Mary all gave me a touching personal thank you. It is because of the strength and determination I see in them that I have had the will to continue this project at all. I met them on an average afternoon in March 2013, and they shook my entire world. These women are ready to begin learning a new skill, something that can never be taken from them. They have waited long enough.

Please, if you are reading this, take a moment to celebrate. I thank you all for your generous support. You have supported Enliven Mama Africa financially, or you have supported me emotionally and spiritually. Thank you for sticking with us, though it's taken a year and a half to arrive here.

Also, as you celebrate, realize that our work is not finished. These 14 women have just begun their journey of learning, and we mean to stick by each and every one of them. 14 is a large number, but it is not nearly half of the single mothers in Besease alone, let alone the Ashanti region, Ghana, Africa, and even the world. We are in the progress of making a difference, and we've accomplished our vital first step.

The Power of Community 2 (Thank you, Besease!)

Fourteen single mothers will begin learning the seamstress trade next week (written November, 2014). When Maxwell and I began visiting these women in March of 2013, we were eager, but we lacked vision. We couldn't tell the women exactly what we had to offer. Concretely, at the time, we had nothing. Not a name, not a mission statement, and certainly not money.

We let the program be shaped by what we heard from the women. Enliven Mama Africa was born of scheming and compiling what we'd heard, what we dreamed of, and what was feasible. That early stage was made possible by the ideas and insight of my dear friends Nans, Lydia, and Mavis. Those conversations compelled me to rethink my entire future.

Because Enliven Mama Africa was created mostly inside a large volunteer house in West Kumasi by a few Ghanaians and three teenage obrunis, I was sometimes afraid that it was too far removed from Besease to be real to the community's needs. We spent so much more time in the office than in the field that I was concerned it was becoming our personal idea.

This feeling was intensified by comments I heard back here in Colorado. Some of the comments were just rude ("Why would you go exert your privilege?" "What are you, an imperialist?"), but others made me think, such as: "How do you know that this is the right project for these women?" "How do you know it's what they really want?"

As Besease prepared to get the women involved in learning trades, community members stepped up and offered to make desks and chairs for the women. The community offered an empty building for the women to learn. Enliven Mama Africa is a project the community of Besease is excited about. This compounds my excitement, because I know there are people throughout rural Ghana interested in the cause of single mother employment.