Fire Cadets report from Ghana

On 27th July, Audlem Online reported the departure of the Cheshire Fire Cadets as they embarked on their Ghana School Building Challenge. Sixteen Cheshire Fire Cadets and 6 staff raised over £43,000 between them over the last 12 months through fundraising and donations. They have travelled to Ghana to help build a school in the village of Adeklu in the Volta region of Ghana.

Cadet leader Isobel Sykes and Cadets Naomi Brown and Matthew Turner
from Audlem Cadet Unit are among the cadets and helpers going to Ghana.

Audlem Online has been contacted by John Scott who says that Isobel, Naomi and Matthew are all well and enjoying the experience. The following reports show they have been making excellent progress:

Monday 27th JulyThe team of fire cadets arrived at Adeklu-Helepke in Ghana, after travelling along dirt roads for 11 kilometres. It took nearly 90 minutes to get there.

We are visiting Ghana to help the local people to build a school in the village of Adeklu-Helepke ready for the Durbar Day.

When we arrived at the village, we were met on the road by a procession with banners, a band, and hundreds of local villagers and the school children.

The welcome was an amazing experience of drumming, dancing and singing which went on for some time.

After the formal introduction to the tribal chiefs and village elders, the Cadets joined in with the building work on the site. The school walls were up but the roof was not on and the whole site had to be filled, concreted and painted.

The Cadets were worried that we would never have it completed for the Durbar Day but I knew from past experience that the schedule, weather allowing was achievable.

The Cadets set to with energy and enthusiasm and had to be prompted to take breaks, spend some time in shade and drink lots of water.

Thursday 30th JulyCadet leaders become tribal chiefs! With the weather being fairly favourable a team of leaders and Cadets asisted by local guides went up the impressive 600m high Adeklu Mountain which overlooks the village.

By now the Cadets and Staff have the expected sickness and diarrhoea problems that we experienced on our previous visits to Ghana, but everyone was on site and working.

The Cadets are a credit to the service as they work and play hard despite the heat and humidity and sickness problems.

Thursday afternoon was a surprise. We had noticed that from lunchtime onwards the number of people in the village was growing and most of them we had not seen before, including some of the elders and Chiefs we had met on our first day.

Then we were asked to attend a meeting where we went into all the formal greeting all over again which left us confused at what was happening. I briefed the Cadets to go with the flow as I had no idea what was going on.

Then without warning, Sue and I were rushed by a group of village men and carried bodily out of the meeting, to great shouts and singing. We were taken to a room and accompanied by the village chiefs, where we were appointed as new Chiefs for the village community of Adeklu.

Now dressed in the regalia of tribal chief, we were taken back for formal presentation to the community.

That evening we had heavy rain which damaged the roads and we had a two and half hour difficult journey back to Ho.

3rd AugustSchool opened on Durbar Day – Durbar day arrived and the roads are still bad. The bus got bogged down in the mud again, so we set off walking to the village.

The day was spectacular and having the Government minister for Education open the school was a real coup.

The Cadets played their full part. When we left the village to an emotional farewell there were several moist eyes in the group and not all of them were the Cadets!

The party are off today to visit the Willi falls on the border with Togo and to call in and visit the first school we helped to build in in Akrofu, Ghana in 2005.

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