I have recently come back from a trip to Ghana where I volunteered for a week in an orphanage and school. During this time I went to visit a village 2 hours North of Accra named Honi. The families living here are extremely poor with little access to water and public facilities. Up to 12 people live in tiny mud huts that only last for 3 years before they need to be rebuilt. None of the children here can access a school as their families have no money to send them, instead they work from a very young age either collecting water from a local stream/water hole (which is also used as a bathing, washing and toileting area) and carry it on their heads up a long sandy/muddy road back to their hut or looking after younger siblings whilst their parents attend to the land. All they have is literally the clothes on their back. During my visit we brought them suitcases full of clothes donated by friends and family in the UK and also a few books and soft toys for the children. These few items made a huge difference, many of them cried with tears of joy. The only long term facility they have at the moment is their church which tries to help them as much as they can. During our visit some team members also carried out general health checks and their findings were over whelming. Many adults (young and old) suffered with extremely high and dangerous levels of blood pressure which is difficult to treat without taking tablets, their diet is something that they cannot make many changes to as food is so scarce they have to eat whatever is available to them at the time. There were also children and adults suffering with different infections such as ear and chest infections with no access to antibiotics or even paracetamol. One little boy was being violently sick during our visit, he was just left to sleep on the concrete floor of the church. There were also a number of children with cuts and other small wounds that couldn’t be attended to by the villagers as their only option was to tie a dirty rag around it. There are no safe places for the children to play nor any materials to play with. Malaria and Cholera can also affect the people in this village.

My aim is to now try and spread awareness and raise money to help pay for medical cards for as many of these people as possible. It costs just £10 a year for an adult healthcare card and this includes the travel expenses, as it is a long bus journey and walk to get there. And it costs just £5 a year for a children’s healthcare card. These cards will help change their lives and provide them with free care and medication that they so desperately need. Whilst we were there we already helped 16 of the people that were most in need of the medical cards. Themselves and their families were so over joyed, it was amazing to see the difference that these basic cards were going to make to their lives.