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Intern Abroad in Ghana
ProWorld Ghana health interns work in clinics and hospitals, take part in community outreach programs and collaborate with Ghana Health Services and local NGOs to promote health education and awareness, providing individuals and communities with the tools to prevent illnesses, access needed healthcare, and lead healthy lives.
Health projects in Ghana include
- Health Education and Support
- Clinical Health Outreach
- Clinical Medical Placement
Bring much-needed health awareness and knowledge to communities who suffer poverty and ill health as a result of a lack of education. Leading public health issues include malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, malnutrition and poor sanitary conditions. Interns can work on education and advocacy, awareness of prevention and sanitation, compiling data, conducting surveys, evaluating the impact of health initiatives, providing counseling, helping victims and their families with care, and organizing income-generating activities.
CLINICAL HEALTH OUTREACH
Community outreach programs in Cape Coast of only have a handful of staff and a few volunteers to treat and educate the entire community on the reality of preventable diseases. Your role will be to assist in outreach in communities, schools, and churches as well as doing door-to-door outreach when possible. You will provide staff assistance, give workshops, have discussions, and help to answer questions set forth by community members. There is the opportunity to take part in medical missions, basic first-aid training and treatment, health screening, pre-natal and post-natal care and even possibly building sanitary bathrooms. Interns must be studying or have finished a course relating to health or medicine.
CLINICAL MEDICAL PLACEMENT
This project is based in hospitals and clinics in and surrounding Cape Coast. You will support doctors, nurses, and staff as they care for low-income patients and manage the day-to-day operations of the clinic. The level of work and the areas interns are allowed access to in clinical placements will greatly depend on how much knowledge and experience interns already possess, everyone will also be expected to carry out some administrative work. To take part in this placement volunteers must have previous medical experience.
ENVIRONMENT PORTFOLIO IN GHANA
While Ghana is a country endowed with an abundance of natural resources, lack of past and present management of those resources has led to vast environmental degradation. Problems such as deforestation, overgrazing, and periodic drought have led to desertification, and soil erosion. Ghana's wildlife populations, depleted by habitat loss, have been further threatened by poaching. Economic reform policies put into place in the 1980s, led to rapid industrialization and economic growth in Ghana but at a high expense to the environment. Unsustainable agriculture practices, increased timber exports, and uncontrolled mining have taken their toll. Communities that previously dealt with almost entirely organic trash, now struggle with proper sanitation and waste management strategies.
ProWorld Ghana Environmental volunteers work to promote environmental awareness in local schools and communities. They also support local community eco-tourism projects which provide an economic incentive to local community members to protect their natural resources and help to promote environmental awareness.
Environmental projects in Ghana are centered around environmental education.
ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AND SANITATION PROJECT
Work to promote awareness of how health, hygiene, sanitation, pollution and the environment are interrelated and how they affect Ghanaians in local schools and communities. Communities are taught to carry out sustainable practices with the surrounding environment to improve the health and environment of local citizens. Tasks may include teaching/lecturing, planning and implementing workshops, helping to put presentations together, and working with other activities such as tree planting, delivering medical supplies, providing care to victims of disease, research and training. Also interns can be involved in clean up exercises, both organizing and implementing them. There is also the opportunity to be involved in recycling campaigns and exercises.
While the number of people living in poverty in Ghana has declined in recent years and the 80s and 90s saw vast industrialization and economic growth, inequality between the rich and poor and urban and rural areas has increased. Cape Coast rests as the center of Ghana's small but growing tourism industry and is home to some of the finest academic institutions in Ghana, yet the people of Cape Coast and the surrounding communities have seen little gain from this. Job opportunities remain limited and many local children do not receive high enough marks to take advantage of nearby higher education opportunities.
ProWorld Ghana Social and Economic Development Interns work on a variety of projects including education and youth development, construction, small business support, capacity building and community empowerment.
Social and Economic Development projects in Ghana include:
- Education and Youth Development
- Special Needs Education Development
- Community Empowerment
- Small Business Development
Help vulnerable youth to get a higher quality education than their circumstances normally provide. Interns work in day care, primary schools and communities to implement fun social activities, help teach English, science, mathematics, arts and sports, and run extracurricular reading and writing clubs to help children who are struggling in classes. A love of children is a must. Any previous work with children, teaching experience or community/youth group work is an advantage.
SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION DEVELOPMENT
In Ghana there is a stigma attached to those who suffer from physical and mental disabilities both within families the communities at large. In Cape Coast, there is a school dedicated to eradicating this stigma and helping children reach their fullest potential. Interns are needed to assist in day-to-day care of the students, teaching, extracurricular activities, and any other task they may want to be part of. Past volunteers have also assisted in vocational training and art therapy.
COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT
Give multiple generations of Ghanaians the tools to break the poverty cycle and achieve healthier, more productive lifestyles. Interns can work to get children into schools, provide vocational training education for both youth and adults, research education programs to assist at risk children, and help local NGOs with organization, promotion and management.
SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
This project is designed to help the youth of Cape Coast in starting up and growing small sustainable businesses. The aim is to provide basic business, marketing and bookkeeping skills to trainees so that they can grow their own businesses once they leave the program. Interns conduct marketing, budgeting and grant proposal workshops, provide computer training, website and/or design support, and accounting or financial management.
Excursions
While many weekends are left free for independent travel and exploration, on select weekends ProWorld Ghana offers cultural visits to local area attractions as well as the opportunity during the week to take part in local language classes and cultural workshops. Based on duration of program, excursions and activities may include:
- Visiting Cape Coast and Elmina Castles
- Visiting Kakum National Park and crossing their canopy walk
- Seeing the local monkey sanctuary
- Fante language classes
- Participating in remote community cultural events and celebrations
- Short term weekend development projects
When you are ready, please apply at www.myproworld.org/apply.
