'When Gateshead met Ghana' Project and Open Night
From Gateshead Council's website. A great story about young people in Gateshead.
A leading Ghanaian dignitary is visiting the UK for the first time in almost 23 years, to personally thank Gateshead youngsters for their ongoing development work in Africa.
Village elder Justus Kwame Avudzivi, will visit a specially organised Ghana open night at the Sage Gateshead to celebrate a project which has seen young people working in the African country.
Youngsters from Gateshead will now visit the village of Shia for the third time, after a grant from the Youth Opportunity Fund made another trip in November possible.
The open night, on Monday 2 April, will showcase a new film – when Gateshead met Ghana - produced by the group on how young lives have been transformed.
They want to raise £20,000 to build an accommodation block in Shia, so that more young people can travel there to help the village build a community centre, library and IT facilities.
Two trips have taken place in 2000 and 2006, with Gateshead teenagers helping paint a kindergarten, teach in classrooms, work on a farm, share musical activities and plant mango trees.
The group is organised by Gateshead Council’s Youth and Community Learning service, Connexions Tyne and Wear, Madventurer (a local operator of Gaps for students and school leavers), and Deckham Community Association.
Graeme Wilkinson, lead personal adviser on youth engagement at Connexions and positive youth engagement beacon support worker at Gateshead Council, said:
“The project is about changing lives and we’re delighted to be linking up with Ghana again this year. We want to raise awareness of what we’ve already achieved and inspire other people to get involved.
“These trips are a great example of active citizenship by young people and have had a big and positive impact on their lives.�
“In the past, the groups have had to stay with Justus, who is the founder and President of the Prenco (Poverty Reduction & Environment Conservation) Foundation. A 24 bed accommodation block would mean people from Gateshead and across the UK could visit regularly, and the village could also use it for tourism.�