Tinny goes to Bruce Grove

Today Tinny visited Bruce Grove Youth Centre to hang out with the kids working on music there. 

The Centre is the only statutory youth provision in the area, consisting of a £3million state of the art building which attracts local young people in the 13-17 year age group from Bruce Grove and across Tottenham and Haringey.

Tinny performed, toured the facility and spoke to staff and volunteers about Ghana and Fairtrade. Many of the young people had recently taken part in a series of Fairtrade workshops and were keen to hear Tinny's perspective on the impact of Fairtrade upon Ghana's cocoa farming communities.

He had a great time and told us "I loved meeting all the young people here and seeing their passion for music and for Fairtrade. It's a fantastic centre and does a great job giving these kids the facilities to learn new skills - whether that's about important issues like Fairtrade, music, dance or drama."

Go Team Zingolo!

We loved reading the Ghana Expedition 2010 blog.

In the summer of 2010 two teams (each 11 students and 2 teacher) will be heading from Woodford County High School to Ghana for 4 weeks. During that time, they plan to work in the community, hoping to make a difference.

We were especially delighted to see that they'd decided to change their team name to Zingolo in honour of our Fairtrade campaign. Thanks guys, we're honoured and rooting for you!!

Meet Henry Addo

Who are you and what do you do at Afrigadget? Do you have another job or is that what you spend all your time on?

I'm an Afrigadget contributor but my full time job is as a software developer, specialising in writing web applications and android apps. I work for Ushahidi Inc, a non-profit organization that develops a web application for crowdsourcing crisis information. 

Tell us about where you grew up

I am a Ghanaian and so far I have lived all my live in Ghana. I grew up in many places due to the nature of my parents job. But I grew up mostly in Tema, Accra.

How long have you been blogging about African inventions?

Close to three years.

Why is this such a passion of yours?

Because it gives me the opportunity to expose African inventions and the people behind them.

What do you know about Cadbury Dairy Milk and the move to Fairtrade?

I did not know about it until I saw the Fairtrade commercial with Tinny on YouTube. I plan to find out more!

Tinny is going to be coming to the UK in the next couple of weeks. What do you think I should ask him?

Hehe. Why don't you ask him what he thinks makes him so sexy? Because he calls himself Sexy Tinny. Also, tell him well done and that he should keep raising the Ghanain flag high.

Finally, tell us a bit about your life in Accra, what's does a typical weekend involve for you?

On weekdays, I am mostly at home working. I spend most of my time behind the computer and on weekends, Saturdays, I go for group meetings and try to spend time with my friends. Sundays are the days, I try to stay off work, jump onto my motorcycle and ride as far as I can, keeping track of my travels with my GPS enabled phone so I can map them on Google maps.

You can find out more about Henry by reading his blog.

Tinny is coming

There's a great list of Fairtrade books that you can read over on the Fairtrade website. The list has covered everything for those who want to learn more about Fairtrade. Included in the list are personal stories about Fairtrade, economic points of view, humanitarianism and of course, books full of Fairtrade recipes.

You can see the full list here.

 

In July 2006 Cadbury was one of the partners who introduced a free newspaper for cocoa farmers. this was a msive move, for the first time farmers would be able to learn more from the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana. The newspaper has loads of information on cocoa farming practices/technologies in a simple illustrative format and simple English - all there to help the cocoa farmers to increase cocoa productivity.

75,000 copies of each edition of the newspaper are printed and many are passed from farmer to farmer. 

Cadbury have been building wells in Ghana since 2000, when the first well was built at Sefwi-Kojina, Ghana’s western region. This region produces more than 50% of Ghana’s annual cocoa crop.

In 2007 Cadbury committed to build a well a day in Ghana.

Cadbury worked with Kuapa Kokoo Social Development Fund and Water Aid, to build the wells. Since the well-a-day pledge a further 130,000 people have benefited from the scheme with over 850 wells built to date.

After a well was built in Akim Koforidua, the village chief, Nana Kofi Okyere said "The provision of this well has brought a lot of improvement. The water tastes better and we do not have to form long queues. The children and adults do not suffer from water-borne diseases anymore."
 

 

We loved looking at the pictures taken by the guys over at Afrigadget of Accra. Our favourite was the one above of the guy carrying a table and chairs. Ghanaians have the most incredible sense of balance and they can  pretty much anything on their heads.

You can't drink the tap water in Ghana - assuming that there is tap water in the first place. That said, fresh drinkable water is never far from reach. Fresh, purified water is for sale pretty much everywhere. It's difficult to scan an average scene in Ghana and not see someone wandering around selling sachets of water, just like the lady in the picture above. Ghanaians bite a tiny bit off the corner of the sachets and drink the water straight from the bag.

The guys at Maker Afircan Faire were thinking about what else they can do with these bags and came up with some interesting ideas including how they could use the bag to generate electricity by using them to create small turbines. Read more on their blog over here.

It's difficult to talk about African inventions and innovation without mentioning William Kamkwamba. Indeed, his name came up more than just a few times at Maker Africa Faire. When he was just 14 years old, this Malawian inventor made his family a windmill. William's family was so poor he had to leave school. But then, one fateful day, he saw a picture of a windmill and started to learn all about them, until he built one himself.

He's a huge inspiration to other inventors in Africa and his success is legendary. It's remarkable how a boy from a relatively unknown village can end up in the states on a book tour. The guys I met in Ghana would probably call that African spirit.

Fairtrade books

There's a great list of Fairtrade books that you can read over on the Fairtrade website. The list has covered everything for those who want to learn more about Fairtrade. Included in the list are personal stories about Fairtrade, economic points of view, humanitarianism and of course, books full of Fairtrade recipes.

You can see the full list here.

Cadbury Cocoa Partnership - Farmer Newspaper

 

In July 2006 Cadbury was one of the partners who introduced a free newspaper for cocoa farmers. this was a msive move, for the first time farmers would be able to learn more from the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana. The newspaper has loads of information on cocoa farming practices/technologies in a simple illustrative format and simple English - all there to help the cocoa farmers to increase cocoa productivity.

75,000 copies of each edition of the newspaper are printed and many are passed from farmer to farmer. 

Cadbury Cocoa Partnership - wells in Ghana

Cadbury have been building wells in Ghana since 2000, when the first well was built at Sefwi-Kojina, Ghana’s western region. This region produces more than 50% of Ghana’s annual cocoa crop.

In 2007 Cadbury committed to build a well a day in Ghana.

Cadbury worked with Kuapa Kokoo Social Development Fund and Water Aid, to build the wells. Since the well-a-day pledge a further 130,000 people have benefited from the scheme with over 850 wells built to date.

After a well was built in Akim Koforidua, the village chief, Nana Kofi Okyere said "The provision of this well has brought a lot of improvement. The water tastes better and we do not have to form long queues. The children and adults do not suffer from water-borne diseases anymore."
 

 

Pictures of Accra on Afrigadget

We loved looking at the pictures taken by the guys over at Afrigadget of Accra. Our favourite was the one above of the guy carrying a table and chairs. Ghanaians have the most incredible sense of balance and they can  pretty much anything on their heads.

Ghanaian water bags

You can't drink the tap water in Ghana - assuming that there is tap water in the first place. That said, fresh drinkable water is never far from reach. Fresh, purified water is for sale pretty much everywhere. It's difficult to scan an average scene in Ghana and not see someone wandering around selling sachets of water, just like the lady in the picture above. Ghanaians bite a tiny bit off the corner of the sachets and drink the water straight from the bag.

The guys at Maker Afircan Faire were thinking about what else they can do with these bags and came up with some interesting ideas including how they could use the bag to generate electricity by using them to create small turbines. Read more on their blog over here.

Windmills in Africa

It's difficult to talk about African inventions and innovation without mentioning William Kamkwamba. Indeed, his name came up more than just a few times at Maker Africa Faire. When he was just 14 years old, this Malawian inventor made his family a windmill. William's family was so poor he had to leave school. But then, one fateful day, he saw a picture of a windmill and started to learn all about them, until he built one himself.

He's a huge inspiration to other inventors in Africa and his success is legendary. It's remarkable how a boy from a relatively unknown village can end up in the states on a book tour. The guys I met in Ghana would probably call that African spirit.