Sebastien Gasquet's Blog - Post #8

Last Day!

I'm writing this right now in part to keep awake: I need to be at Kotoka International Airport at 3:30 AM to catch my flight back to Europe. I can't believe it is already time to go back home...these past 2 months have gone by like a blur! It seems like only yesterday I stepped off the plane in the dead of night to begin my Accra adventure, and yet here I am yet again (in the dead of night) ready to speed away to Geneva before heading back to Pittsburgh. Why does Royal Air Maroc have such super weird schedules in Accra??

I was sent off with nothing less than a bang. This Friday the entire office organized a going-away party complete with pizza, and I even received a present from the entire WANEP crew: a razor-sharp dress shirt with a Ghanaian motif, talk about style! I have to say though, the staff really made my relatively short stay a memorable one! Today, which turned out to be my final day of work, I witnessed a conference of the zonal coordinators and NEWS directors from WANEP offices from all across West Africa: Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Gambia,Mali, Senegal,and Cote d'Ivoire to just name a few of the represented countries whose representatives I was able to meet with

My going away party!

The specific theme was the combat for greater gender equality in peacebuilding activities across West Africa. The organization has a program, WIPNET, entirely designed to address the lack of women in civil society organizations dealing with conflict resolution and the roles that they can play. The conference also focused on the "early warning indicators", which I have been working on all summer, that were developed by each country and that are specifically tailored to their own national issues. For example, countries like Mali and Niger had a lot of indicators pertaining to religious extremism and the threat posed by AQIM and its affiliated militias in the Sahel. As it is a conference that spans 2 days, my one regret is that I won't be able to assist the whole thing, it definitely wasn't the stereotypical huge conference where people doze off. I'm glad the end of my internship ended on a high note though!

Yes, I definitely could have fared a lot worse when it came to finding an internship! I genuinely enjoyed my day-to-day activities, and really feel as if I come away having learned a lot about what takes to work in an international NGO. Living in Accra itself was an amazing experience as well, once you get used to its little quirks (as all major cities possess) it becomes a really fun place to discover. Don't get me wrong, Ghana definitely has its issues, most of them regarding the screaming inequalities between the rich and powerful vs. the poor, but to call the people here "welcoming" is a massive understatement. I'll kind of miss being woken up by the squadrons of insane roosters that run around the city screaming like banshees. I hope this blog conveyed some of what I felt while being here, and gave you somewhat of a picture of life and work in Accra, Ghana.