By Tami L. Johnson

This past August, Miss North Ogden, Rachel Alder, had the amazing opportunity to visit the country of Ghana, Africa.  Specifically, she spent much of her time in the city of Bethel.  There, she gave love, hope, and time to young children in orphanages who were eager to receive such kindness.
“The most fulfilling thing was connecting with the kids.  They have so little and yet they have joy,” Alder says.
Alder traveled with the Ivy Foundation which is a non-profit founded by Jessie Clark Funk. The mission of the Ivy Foundation is: “Unleashing Potential in at Risk Youth Through Leadership Education.” You can learn more about the Ivy Foundation through the Ivy Girl Academy’s website: www.ivygirlacademy.com
Eleven total people, including Rachel Alder and Jessie Funk, went to Ghana. There were seven girls and four adults.  This special trip to Ghana, with the Ivy Foundation, was in partnership with another non-profit called VIMA which stands for Volunteers for International Medical Aide.
 We learn that “VIMA is a California-based international humanitarian organization, established by a Ghanaian citizen living in the United States to help provide much needed medical aid to some rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa”. Much more information on www.vimaonline.org
Alder, along with the other girls, spent most of their time in an orphanage in Bethel where they hugged, loved, and even played soccer with the children.
“We brought resources to villages that don’t normally get visits and don’t see many people,” Alder relates. “We brought laptops to two villages that just got access to technology for the first time, so that was a really eye-opening experience to be part of.” 


One of the main service projects Alder and the other girls were able to engage in was building a hygiene center for boys. Part of the funds, saved for this trip, went towards the purchase of the materials for the hygiene center.
 “We actually got to make the bricks and mix the cement together.  We let those dry and took the ones that were already done and stacked them up. It was an incredible experience.”
Over in Ghana, Alder was able to teach the children a message on leadership which is what her Miss North Ogden platform: “Choose Your Own Statistic” is all about. To learn more about Alder’s platform you can go to www.rachelalder.com
The orphanage in Bethel is unique in the sense that it has a school attached to it as well as a church. Teachers are hired to teach the children.  
Alder adds, “What really surprised me was the community and how tight knit the village is. The village kids can play with the orphanage kids. I felt very safe there. It is a very loving atmosphere.”
 Sponsorship is actually encouraged over adoption in Ghana. 
“Instead of having these children move away from their friends, community, their language and the culture they know and love—sponsorship is a great opportunity where they are able to get access to those resources.”
Additionally, Alder says, “They are able to stay where it is familiar and it is better long-term for the kids where they can stay and build up their own communities.
There is a Sponsorship program which only costs $40/month and this allows a child: clothing, further education, health care and more.  You can choose which child to sponsor, write to them and even send packages.
When it came to sponsoring a child, Alder thought, “I can do that. I’m in college, but I can do that.”
Alder sponsors a young Ghanaian boy named Mesiwotsos who is 11 years old.  In time, she would also like to sponsor his younger brother, Jacob, who is 3 years old. Right now, Mesiwotsos takes care of Jacob who has down-syndrome. 
“The whole time we were there Jacob would not let me put him down. He doesn’t speak at all but he’s taught me so much about love.”
You may want to help sponsor a child, too.  If so, you can go to this website at www.vimaonline.org to learn how.  More trips to Ghana are in the planning stages.  Alder definitely wants to return there when she can--- especially to see Mesiwotsos and Jacob. 
One of the greatest things the girls from the Ivy Foundation learned on their trip to Ghana is the difference between a need and a want. And the fact that love needs no words.

See full article with the Sentinel News here

Dear VIMA Family,

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to all of our supporters and donors for trusting us and helping us to care for society's vulnerable, our orphans. For July e-newsletter, I want to share a profound encounter that I had involving one of our orphans, Gifty, and how her desire to get a better life for her younger and disabled sister, Awoenam, helped us to discover Awoenam and subsequently changed her life for the better.

Gifty is a very quiet but cheerful girl that has been at VIMA Home Annex since mid 2017. She is happily being sponsored by Janie Bleach, Gabe's grandma whom I had the pleasure of meeting in Reno last year. During my normal visits to Ghana, I usually will alternate between the two orphanage locations. On this particular day last June, I paid a visit to VIMA Home Annex in my hometown of Amedzofe. It was a wonderful day where the kids and I had a good play and discussion time. As the night began to fall, I got ready to return to Ho due to a meeting I had the next morning with my staff member, Eben. As I sat in the car, getting ready to travel back to Ho, I heard a knock on the car window and was startled as I was not paying attention. I turned and saw Gifty standing by the door looking a bit sad and also nervous, perhaps because she did not know what my response would be to her request. Gifty turned to me and said in the local Amedzofe language, "Oker, mesi misiwor liboetor" meaning “father, I want to tell you something.” I quickly replied, “Always feel free to talk to me anytime.” She then went on to say, “Please, I have a sister,” and then tears started running down her face. Even though I was running late to Ho, and the weather was getting foggy, my instincts told me I needed to further learn more about her concern. I also knew I needed to act because whatever she wanted to tell me, it’s most certainly not a very good news.As Gifty kept wiping her tears,all I could think to ask her next was where is your sister? She said she was at her grandmother’s house on the outskirts of the village, so I said let's go see your sister. I,and another staff member, Robert, hurried and walked with Gifty towards her grandmother’s house. When we got there, it appeared as though no one was home because the Grandma was sick and bedridden. Gifty then told me to come this way, and as we walked towards the clay mini house on the far end, the building looked as if it would fall if a strong wind came through. I saw a little girl who was all skin and bone looking dazed. As I got closer, I realized she could not walk as she made a quick turn by crawling to face our direction. She appeared to have a well formed upper body physique, but paralyzed legs. It became clear, without further questioning, that she was Gifty’s younger sister; they looked so much alike. I asked the little girl of her name, and she said “Awoenam.” I then asked her how old she was, and she told me that she was seven years old. I observed her surroundings and realized she was trying to cook green (unripe) bananas but did not have anything to use for stew or sauce. The situation was heartbreaking as I could tell she was also soaked in urine, very dirty, and there was a bad odor, probably from not taking showers. I turned to Gifty and asked how long her sister had been living there, and she said ever since their mother died. By this time, I had many more questions to ask, such as: how did the VIMA staff not know about Awoenam? Why did we rescued Gifty, but not her sister? How had she survived this long as a paraplegic with no proper care? Did she attend school? Along with so many more questions, but the more I wanted to ask, the more I came to the realization of how children born with deformities are sometimes treated in my part of the world. They are treated as outcasts, they are considered cursed children, and in some instances, they are left to die by starvation. It was clear that Awoenam was even lucky to be alive.
 
“When Awoenam was born, her family and relatives thought she was a curse. This thought is common in rural Africa when a disabled child is born. They tried to convince her mother to stop breastfeeding her so that she would die of hunger. They said that nothing like this had ever happened in their family before and that as soon as she was born, a tree with deep roots fell in the town on a windy day, a sign of bad luck,” said a neighbor by name Kudzo, who I knew growing up in Amedzofe.
But according to Kudzo, Gifty’s late mother thought she was beautiful from the moment she laid eyes on her, so she decided to protect her daughter from harm. It then became clear why Awoenam was never brought to VIMA Home Annex, the stigma of not being accepted.
This is why Gifty did not want to expose her sister at first, but it was apparent that my presence at her home means a new day for Awoenam.
After hearing Awoenam’s story, my heart was filled with sorrow and sympathy towards her,so I decided VIMA must help. Awoenam was brought to VIMA Annex the next day. She arrived tiny and extremely malnourished; she was in horrible condition. I was overbearingly joyful when Awoenam could finally experience the love and safety she deserved, to experience a childhood free from the fear of being labeled a “cursed child.” I told Gifty that, there was nothing wrong with her sister, and that disability was not inability. Since moving to VIMA Home, Awoenam began to make new friends in addition to her sister. She has a beautiful smile, and she is now fed three times a day without crawling to cook by herself.

At VIMA, we would like to use this case to educate our communities that being disabled does not mean you cannot make it. We are so glad to rescue Awoenam, and I feel downhearted for many more of such cases that we may never know about in the nearby villages. I want to use this story to be a lesson for the community that treating a disabled child in a negative way is just awful.

Just a few days after meeting Awoenam, just as faith will have it, I got a call from one of our recent volunteers, Jade Rowe, who came to Ghana to volunteer at VIMA Home. She wrote me saying she wanted to sponsor two children at VIMA Home, I smiled and wrote her back saying, “Jade, I know for sure one of the children that I will recommend for you.” Jade fell in love with Awoenam story and decided to sponsor her. Today for the first time in her life, Awoenam has been enrolled in school just like the other children at VIMA Annex. However, there is one more setback for now. Awoenam cannot walk;she, therefore, has to be carried shoulder high to school and back every day. We managed to get used wheelchair, but we realized the road to school was not pliable by the wheelchair.Due to the rocky terrain at Amedzofe, the chair broke within a short time. It appears we need an electric wheelchair with bigger front tires (and yes, there is electricity in the village). We do not have a reliable means of getting Awoenam to school yet, but one thing I know for sure is Awoenam will continue to be carried shoulder high in the meantime until we find a permanent means of transporting her to school. If you feel touched enough by Awoenam story and want to assist us in getting a commercial type motorised chair for her, then I’ll encourage you to click here to DONATE and help us get Awoenam a customised wheelchair. Upon enquiries, prices of customised durable chairs in Accra ranges from $950 to $1,200. Please remember to state in the memo section the purpose of your donation.

​Stories such as Awoenam's is why our work in rural Volta is so very critical, and I have no doubts she can grow to become a lawyer, a teacher, or an advocate for the disabled, especially children like herself. We cannot stop, but rather push on in our efforts to rescue and educate more so as to change the cycle of poverty that exists in Sub-Saharan Africa. We can do this, one child at a time.
 
I thank you all once again for your love towards our VIMA children, and it is our hope that we can educate our local people that indeed “Disable children are still able children. Afterall, the name Awoenam in the local Ewe language means “God will make a way.”

 
 

By Jonathan Eskin Las Vegas Review-Journal
July 31, 2019

The Lights FC 0rganization appears to live by the Golden Rule.
Case in point: The team sent a care package more than 7,000 miles to disadvantaged youth in Ghana, Africa.
Collaborating with the Think Kindness organization during their excursion for Global acts of kindness, the Lights spread joy halfway around the world.
They also recently donated 40 Lights FC youth jerseys, soccer balls and mini soccer balls that went to a village of Tsibu-Bethel, where the children live in an orphanage, and the Kabore School, located in Ho, Volta Region, Ghana.
There, the Kabore School trains 25 soccer players with no shoes, one soccer ball and socks to protect their feet from the dirt and gravel — the surface used for matches.
When Lights players heard the proposal, they insisted that they provide their own cleats for the kids. That included forward Tabort Etaka Preston, a Cameroon native.
“It’s a privilege for me to give back,” Preston said. “We grow up in a very hard way. There are a million things we don’t have. The little we can give at least is going to help in any way.”
Defender Panzani Sousa, from Democratic Republic of the Congo, said: “It feels very good. It’s a positive movement that we want to do all the time.
“Just give back anything that you have. Anything matters. Everything matters there.”
The Lights recorded a video message from Preston and Sousa that Think Kindness presented to many of the school’s students.

Bishop Gorman senior soccer player Paige Sotelo reached out to the Lights for donations and took part in the trip, along with several other Gorman student-athletes.
“I’m very excited to see that these wonderful kids are wearing the Lights jerseys, because that is my hometown and they’re able to share the love of soccer that I grew up with,” Sotelo said.
Lights owner Brett Lashbrook was proud of the care package.
“Lights FC is always interested in giving back,” he said. “With several players on our roster from West Africa, this one is extra special to them.”
Sousa said the kids just want to play soccer and have the same chances as everyone else.
“I just wanted them to have an opportunity to get the cleats we play with,” he said.

More Lights: Follow at reviewjournal.com/lights and @RJ_Sports on Twitter.

Six months after developing the interest to travel to Africa for volunteering, I landed in Accra, Ghana, happy that I did not let my fear of flying keep me from embarking on what promised to be a life-changing experience. While my plan was to assist VIMA at its orphanage, for me it also represented a new beginning. Through the experience, I will have an opportunity to develop professional relationships with a local charity and determine if my interest in nonprofit in Africa can yield anything beyond just one visit to the continent. Today I am glad I explored, because not only do I serve on the VIMA board as a director but also volunteer as the financial officer, assisting in sending funds to Ghana, assisting with annual tax filings with the IRS, and bookkeeping for the child sponsorship program.

Two days on the ground and I successfully made the necessary adjustments that jet lag requires. Though poor with no industrial activity, the Volta Region of Ghana is majestically beautiful and its people are very friendly.

Views as I traveled across the Volta region of Ghana easily took my breath away – especially the aerial valley views from mountain Gemi of Amedzofe, (Francis’s home village where he was born and where his story began). Also the villages of Sokode, Biakpa, Kpando, Hohoe and Lake Volta, which is actually the largest manmade lake in the whole world, the waterfalls at Wli and the beautiful Kente weavers, and then the long but wonderful church services. All of these was a lot to process and couldn’t help but realized, I was finally in Africa and the feeling was surreal.

During my interaction with VIMA, the organization, which at the time of my visit in 2011 was just 2 years old, came across to me as a very lean-staffed charity in the U.S., sometimes being run for the most part by Francis who visits churches and schools to speak.  However, upon arrival in Ghana, I was surprised about how elaborate and far reaching they were with amazing youthful men and women working to improve the lives of their fellow citizens, especially in the remote and deprived rural areas. Being in Ghana was an experience; the poverty situation in the areas I visited was heartbreaking, even though the people there were extremely nice and seemed to be happy all the time for the most part. I admire the vision of VIMA, and felt I needed to do more in one way or the other. Realizing the need, I offered my assistance to the organization; we talked about the benefits of setting up a 501C3 in the United States, proper account keeping, and board of directors, what donors look for, and sustainability, the need to source for donations instead of solely running the organization from his own paycheck at that time. I felt that was necessary for them to grow more and provide the dire help that was obviously needed.

Before I went to Ghana, I had trouble understanding how my small contribution to the place or its people could really make much of any difference. Indeed the needs were so overwhelming, but I began feeling fulfilled with each day that I spend with the kids and the evenings with Francis planning the future for the organization. I felt the emotions attached to the kids, their beautiful faces, their lives impacted by my presence. While in the U.S., I prayed and asked God to give me a personal connection to somewhere, anywhere   and, wow did he answer that prayer! I saw and experienced how something that seemed small to me can bring huge results to the kids in the villages we visited. Suddenly I was reminded of a famous quote by Edmund Burke, which says “Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”

After two weeks of adventure, volunteerism and some sightseeing, it was time to return to the United States. It was so hard leaving behind all my new friends and the new environment that I liked so much. I am currently planning to return to Ghana in 2019, on the anniversary of VIMAs ten years of existence. The trip will give me the opportunity to see all the work and changes that have happened since my first visit eight years ago, a trip that made me the first VIMA volunteers in Ghana.

Today, eight years have passed since my trip to Ghana. I still hear and visualize the lovely smiles and the singing voices of the kids in Ghana and it always remain one of the greatest decisions I have made in my lifetime. I also acknowledge the persistence and support of founder Francis, but for his patience, I could have abandoned the trip plans and therefore very grateful for his dealings with me. The joy it brought me and my continued service to VIMA has made it worthwhile and has helped me deal with problems in my personal life better and also put things in perspective. I will forever be reminded of the hardworking men and women I met who in a way, have none of the opportunities I have been fortunate to be accorded even in the worst times of my life. If you have the desire to go on a mission trip, I hope you just do it; because it might just turn out to be one of the best adventures ever.

When a group of volunteers from Think Kindness under the direction of Volunteers for International Medical Aid, VIMA, took a tour through a small village hospital in Ghana, it sparked a noble idea in one of them. Camille Reeder Keller from Franklin County took it upon herself to seek out the desperately needed medical supplies to send back to the hospital when she returned home. 

Read More About Camille's Story

VIMA, led by the founder and CEO Francis Kwame Agbemafle, supplied suture scissors, set of gloves, Detol and other disinfectants, isolation gowns, lab specimen collection kit among others.

Read More Here