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JANUARY, 2019 UPDATES

2/1/2019

Dear Readers,
Warm greetings from all of us here in the Resource Team. We trust the New Year has brought renewal in many ways in your lives for the good of all creation. It is with pleasure, as ever, that we bring you updates on our activities from the field for the month of January, 2019.
The Resource Room reopened on the 4th of January following its closure for the Christmas break. The Team lot of tidying up to ensure the place was conducive for work to begin. On the second weekend of the month, we had a mentoring workshop in the north eastern part of the Navrongo-Bolgatanga zone, in a community called Bunkpurugu. The workshop was in the Community Building Unit. A total of 17 young adults were encountered. The workshop made a significant impact on participants resulting in the Catholic community leaders calling for another workshop for their prayer leaders in the various outstations. The Team of SELL Volunteers in the Bunkpurugu community are making great contributions towards restoring and sustaining peace.

The Resource Team travelled to Wa, the Upper West of Ghana, to have the firs training of SELL Volunteer Facilitators. The training took place from the 16th to the 20th of January. 33 young adults were trained as facilitators in the Self Awareness unit of the Programme, among whom were 9 females and 5 deanery Youth Chaplains. The venue for the Training workshop was Wanye, a Spiritual Renewal Centre. Trainee facilitators were taken through a lot of capacity building materials as a way of building their confidence, skills and bonding them as a group. The trainees engaged the programme very well and appreciated the opportunity to be trained as facilitators. They each signed a commitment to go back to their communities and organise workshops and facilitate so that their colleague young adults will also benefit from the programme. The Youth Chaplains really showed their interest and commitment in working with the youth. They reported with the youth, stayed and went through the training processes with them until noon of the Saturday that the left for their various parish communities for pastoral duties the following day.

On the evening of the Saturday, when all the training sessions had finished, there was a social night gathering for recreation and socialisation. Volunteers and Resource Team members participated from start to finish. There were cultural displays by the trainees. It was exciting to see that the young people in this part of the country are still very much in touch with their culture despite the influx of foreign cultures. They sang and danced their hearts out with joy and in appreciation to the benefactors of the programme. At the end of everything the Volunteers were given the materials they need to function in the field. Each team had a set of overview kits and Self Awareness kits. The Resource Team is confidently hopeful that the trainee facilitators will deliver as expected of them in their various communities.

On the 23rd of January, Maria Kidney a consultant of the Presentation Brothers with Misean Cara had a meeting with the Resource Team. A lot of work on the SELL Ghana Misean Cara project was done. Maria sacrificed her time and energy to help the team work on and understand the Project modalities. The Resource Team owe her a lot of thanks and gratitude for all the great work
The Team travelled to Tamale for a Mentoring Training on the final weekend of the month. This training was the fifth one for the Mentors. The mentors travelled from both the Tamale and Navrongo-Bolgatanga zones to the Catholic Youth Centre in Tamale for the training workshop. 14 of them were present. The Team together with the mentors reviewed the experience of working in the field as mentors and the way forward. There were other capacity building materials of which the mentors were taken through in order strengthen their skills. They were introduced to an exercise called ‘Squares’ which aims at fostering cooperation among teams. There was also an exploration on Sexual Orientation. It was necessary for the Team to have conversation on this area with the mentors as it keeps coming up in the field. This we envisage will help them greatly as mentors and their colleague facilitators in the field as they mentor them.
During the training we were privilege to have Brother Godfrey the Provincial Development Officer of the Presentation Brothers and Maria Kidney paying a visit and joining us on the Sunday for the closing Mass celebration. They affirmed the mentors for the great work they do and encouraged them to continue to reach out to the fellow young adults through the ministry of SELL.

In February, there will be two trainings in both the Tamale and Navrongo-Bolgatanga zones on the Wisdom of Traditions Unit and there will also be trips to Wa for mentoring workshops in the Self Awareness Unit.
The Resource Team is grateful as ever to all the benefactors whose generosity makes it possible for this programme to reach out to young people in the various parts of Northern Ghana. Our gratitude will be incomplete if the Volunteers who sacrifice themselves in diverse ways to extend it to the grassroots are not mentioned. We appreciate and pray that their sacrifices be replenished in several fulfilling ways. To the Presentation Brothers and all stakeholders, many heartfelt thanks.

JOSHUA ANAMBE,
For SELL Resource Team, Ghana.

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December 16th, 2018

12/16/2018

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END OF YEAR REPORT, 2018
Greetings from all of us here on the SELL Resource Team in Logre, Bolgatanga, Northern Ghana. We trust you are keeping well. We are extremely delighted to say hello again and to share with you briefly on how the year has been for us. We are pleased to say 2018 has been another successful year of reaching young adults in the Upper East and Northern Regions of Ghana with the liberating message of peace and providing support towards their human development. This would not have been possible without the kind and generous support of our benefactors, the zeal and commitment of our Volunteer Facilitators, the Presentation Brothers, and the Youth Chaplains and leaders at the community level. We are therefore immensely grateful to all of them and all those who supported our course in various ways.
We started the year with a Mentoring Review /Training for our 20 trainee mentors from the 2 Regions (as we shared in the updates for the month of January). The trainee mentors are people selected from our 76 volunteer facilitators, who showed the capability of taking up the role of support persons (mentors). The role of the trainee mentors is to accompany their colleagues (volunteer facilitators) in the field and support them to deliver the quality of work required of the programme. The aim of the mentoring review was to help them reflect on their experiences in the field and equip them with other needed skills. This also frees the Resource Team to design new materials and to respond to other invitations from other Regions.

In the 1st half of the year we had our 3rd round of trainings in the 2 Regions (Upper East and Northern Regions) the training was based on the Peace Building unit of the SELL Programme.

The 4th round of trainings which was based on the Community Building Unit took place in September.

After each of the trainings, volunteers went back to their local communities to step down the programme accompanied by a trainee mentor and a member of the Resource Team. What is remarkable is seeing volunteer facilitators grow in confidence, owning the programme and making an impact through sharing with their peers at community level. This year, the Resource team together with volunteers reached a total of 1,325 young adults; 626 females and 699 Males. We have been delighted to see an increase in the number of Muslims taking part in the workshops.
In April, an opportunity was given to trainee mentors to undertake a basic training in counselling to help build their capacity. The nature of the SELL Programme is such that it gives room for people to share their experiences in an atmosphere of love and mutual respect. In such moments of sharing, some participants break down and need some support and accompaniment at such challenging times. Following this, we felt it was necessary for trainee mentors to have some basic skills in counselling to respond to such situations. It was a great learning experience and mentors found the skills very helpful in the field.

This year we had teachers from 5 different Senior High schools signing up for the Life Choice Training Programme.

The aim of the Life Choice programme is to help students reflect on the important steps they need to make in their life journey. The teachers after the training are rolling out the programme in the Schools. Those teachers who have already conducted workshops after the training in July shared with the Resource Team how priceless it is to the young ones.
In the course of the year, we were able to respond to an invitation we received in 2017 from the Upper West Region, Wa to run the programme there. We did community based outreach workshops for some
selected communities within the region. The response has been positive and we plan to have our 1st volunteer facilitators training in January for the Region.

In the middle of this year, we received another invitation from Damongo, another zone in the Northern Region. Initial contact has been made and we hope to respond to them in the coming year.

The Resource Team has increased in number. Br. John Mark (FPM) has been appointed by the leadership of the Presentation Brothers to be a full time member with the SELL Resource Team. The Presence of John Mark on the Team is very important and timely. It strengthens the team as Vincent Agyei the Team leader is on further studies in Ireland and will be returning in September, 2019.

In general, 2018 has been a success and we feel blessed to have wonderful and kind hearted people who keep supporting this movement. We continue to keep them at the heart of our prayers.
As we come to the end of another very fruitful year – and trusting in divine providence that 2019 will be same, we will like to wish everyone a Joyous Christmas celebration and a Blessed and Productive New Year.

SELL RESOURCE TEAM, GHANA

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October Report

11/10/2018

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Dear Friends,
It’s a pleasure bringing you another update on our activities for the year 2018. We really hope you are doing well in all your endeavours. As we are into the last quarter of the year it’s our prayer that all of us will end the year successfully and fruitfully so that we will be able to look back into 2018 and smile with beaming joy that all things worked together for our good regardless of the challenges.
In our September updates we mentioned we had two major training sessions – one each in the Navrongo-Bolgatanga and Tamale zones. The month of October presented the Resource Team the opportunity to have mentoring and monitoring workshops in both zones. On the first weekend of the month there were mentoring workshops in Wiaga and Fumbisi communities in the Navrongo-Bolgatanga zone, in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Two of the Resource Team members were out to mentor the Volunteer Facilitators in those communities facilitate the Community Building Unit of the programme for the first time since their training in the same unit. Both communities were able to start on the Friday evening though not many participants were present. The overview and the opening sessions were successfully carried out and that paved the way for the Saturday sessions. The total number of participants in Wiaga was 26 and that of Fumbisi was 37. After sharing their experiences in all the sessions of the Community Building Unit it was evident from their feedback from the evaluation forms that they really shared and learned a lot from the workshop. It’s therefore our hope that this learning will be useful to them and their communities for the rest of their lives and that next time there will be many participants who are of the right age group participating in the workshops.

On the 12th of October the Youth Chaplain of Navrongo-Bolgatanga zone visited the Resource Team in the Resource Room in Logre, Bolgatanga for the first time since the reopening of the Resource Room on September 3, 2018 following the month-long leave in August. Fr Clement shared with the team how the youth year has been. The team also shared with him the trainings that happened in September and the mentoring workshops over the previous weekend. The youth chaplain was thankful to the team for the immense support and contribution they are making towards the formation of the youth.
From the 12th to the 14th of October there were mentoring workshops in the Community Building Unit in Walewale, a community under the Navrongo-Bolgatanga zone. A Resource Team member was there to mentor two of the Volunteer Facilitators. The workshop could not start on the Friday evening due to a heavy downpour of rain and power outage. Starting on the Saturday with a few participants present the facilitators could only do three sessions out of the six sessions of the unit. It was however encouraging to know that the few present benefited a lot from these sessions. Their youth leaders are making efforts to organise another workshop on the same unit in order the many young adults who could not attend will also get the opportunity to explore together how to build and sustain genuine communities.

On the same weekend two of the Resource Team members were at Bolgatanga Polytechnic as part of our tertiary outreach for a workshop in the Peace Building Unit. 28 young adults were encountered. Being tertiary students who will eventually go back to their various communities to support to bring about development, this particular unit is invaluable as they learned a lot of leadership skills, styles and qualities. Their leadership team asked that the Resource Team give them two slots a year in lieu of one. This request has been looked into by the Resource Team as they have factored in two slots for the Polytechnic in the 2019 programme.

The third weekend of the month was for mentoring workshops and a facilitation workshop. A Resource Team member travelled to Tamale in the Northern region of Ghana for monitoring workshops in the Community Building Unit. Three of our mentors were in the field that weekend mentoring the Volunteer Facilitators in Savelugu, Nyankpala and Saints Peter and Paul communities. The Resource Team member went round all the communities monitoring how the workshops were conducted. The feedback from the field to the rest of the Resource Team was great! The facilitators and the mentors put a lot of energy and time into making the workshops successful. It was inspiring to see 39 Muslim youth participating in the workshops that weekend. We are therefore confident that the facilitators and the mentors are on course making the programme reach out to many young adults.

As mentioned earlier, two of the Resource Team members facilitated a workshop in the Justice Unit in the University for Development Studies (UDS) Navrongo Campus. A total of 18 students including a Muslim and two lecturers participated actively in the workshop. This particular unit seeks to enable young adults to question why the economic, religious, political and social structures are as they are. Discussion the state of affairs in Ghana, these young people accepted the reality that a lot of things are not moving in the right direction hence the need for them as young people to challenge the systems and expedite actions that will promote justice and positive change that will also bring about the development they want to see.

In the Resource Room we had two European volunteers – Silya and Diana – visiting us. After sharing with them the nature of our work and our efforts to support the global call to care for the earth they shared with us too their own efforts to reach out to reach out to some basic schools to form environment clubs and working together to take care of the environment. We hope to partner with them to promote the Caring for the Earth agenda.

On the last weekend of the month the team was back in Tamale for monitoring workshops in the Community Building Unit in two communities – Kumbungu and OLA. We had a mentor in each of the communities doing the mentoring with the Resource Team member doing the monitoring. In Kumbungu a total of 22 participants including 6 Muslim youth were encountered. It was again interesting to see young Muslims and Christians sharing their experiences together and discussion how they can individually and collectively contribute towards building peaceful communities regardless of their religious differences. The same experience was found in OLA community as there were four Muslim young adults among the thirty-two participants. It is indeed pleasing to find that the vision of ecumenism is gradually unfolding. Within the not too distant future it might be possible to have Muslim and non-Catholic Christian youth trained as Volunteer Facilitators.

The congregational leader of the St. Patrick’s Missionary Society (SPMS) visited the Presentation Brothers’ school community in Logre, Bolgatanga – Upper East Region, Ghana. Two of the SELL Resource Team members, Frs. Tommy Hayden and Leo Traynor, who are at the same time the Resource Persons and authors of the programme are priests of the same society. They also live in the school community. He arrived on the 29th of October. Fr Victor, as he is called, visited the SELL Resource Room the following day. The team shared with him the timeline of the programme from 2015 to 2018. He was informed of the number of communities and young people reached since the programme started. The team expressed their gratitude to the St. Patrick’s Missionary Society for allowing the resource persons to work on the programme as a ministry and for their enormous financial support towards the running of the programme. On his part, Fr Victor could not hide his joy about how far and fast the programme has developed and most importantly about the impact it’s making on the lives of young people. He thanked the team for their efforts and encouraged them to continue with the good work.
Later that day he together with the Resource Team met four of the Volunteer Facilitators in Bolgatanga. The Volunteers thanked him and his society for initiating and promoting the Sharing Education and Learning for Life (SELL) Programme which fosters integrated human development and peace building in young adults. They shared how they got involved with SELL first as participants and later becoming Facilitators and the how programme has influenced their lives. They also expressed how joyful it is for them to help other young adults through the programme. Fr Victor was impressed with their dedication to the programme voluntarily. He further urged them to continue with the hard work to ensure the realisation of the vision and mission of the programme.
The Resource Team is therefore immensely grateful to the Volunteers for their efforts to ensuring the workshops were successful, the Presentation Brothers for their support; the youth chaplains for their encouragement to the Volunteers and to the benefactors for their generosity. Thanks to everyone who supported and continue to support the work in different forms. There are a lot of workshops to be conducted in November and the team will be posting updates of those workshops at the end of the month.

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SEPTEMBER, 2018 UPDATES

10/13/2018

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Hello Friends,
All of us here in the Resource Room send you warm greetings. We trust you are doing well in all your endeavours and that you want to hear from us. After a month long leave period for the Resource Team members in August the Resource Room reopened on the 3rd of September. A lot of activities took place in September and we hereby bring you updates as always.
The fourth training of our Volunteer Facilitators which was done in September was on the Community Building Unit. It was the major activity in both the Navrongo-Bolgatanga and Tamale zones – the Upper East and Northern regions of Ghana respectively. In the Navrongo-Bolgatanga zone the training session was from the 6th to the 9th. A total of 31 young adult facilitators who were already trained in three of the units were present for this fourth training – the number was made up of 10 females and 21 males.

The Tamale training session was from the 27th to the 30th. The facilitators were previously trained on three units of the programme. The total number of trainee facilitators present for the training was also 31 of which 10 were females and the remaining 21 males.

In both groups the facilitators were taken through the six sessions of the Community Building Unit. The sessions are Mind-Map, Process Work on Identity, Exploration of Perspectives, Global Community, The Role of Women, and Sexual Addiction and Internet. The essence of this particular unit of the programme is to look at the task of building and sustaining genuine community life using the family as a starting point and the necessity of good communication in building community. The challenge of intercultural living is also explored.
After going through these sessions and other capacity building materials, the trainee facilitators expressed their gratitude to the Resource Team, Presentation Brothers and the benefactors of the programme for the opportunity given them to explore, share and learn together how to contribute towards building and sustaining good communities. The other capacity building materials also added more gloss inasmuch as community building is concerned. For example, the opening session was ‘Build with What You Have’. In this session trainees were given an item each of their choice among several items. They were then asked to go into groups to put together their individual items to make something meaningful while working in silence. The insights from this exercise show that every individual in their uniqueness can contribute towards building community. It also shows how creativity can spring from silence, patience and observation.
There was also a prayer session designed with the theme centering on community building. Scripture readings were taken from the Christian and Islamic religions and a Proverb from the African Traditional religion. The prayer reflection was taken from the Rainbow Story which shows the colours coming together to form a bow despite their individual uniqueness. This symbol shows how humankind can come together with their differing individual uniqueness to foster unity in diversity and to build good and peaceful communities.
Reading materials on Team Work, Gender and Relationships, God and Human Relations, Social Media, Care for the Earth and Thinking were given to facilitators in seminar groups to read and to find creative ways to present their reading materials as groups. It was so amazing watching these young people present their materials in groups as they did it with passion, commitment and a lot of creativity. The presentations were in drama, role play and poem forms.

There were social night gatherings on the Saturdays during the training in both zones – a night of recreation and socialization. This provided the volunteers with the opportunity to release stress and also to deepen their knowledge of themselves and to entertain themselves. They danced, created jokes and participated in other recreational activities.
During the Tamale training the closing Mass celebration was carried out in the nearby parish of Saints Peter and Paul. In this thanksgiving ceremony the programme was reaffirmed in the community by Fr. Leo Traynor a resource person to the programme who was the main celebrant of the Mass. The facilitators were introduced to the people. The young adults were encouraged to avail themselves for workshops when announcements are made about the programme in the community.
Apart from the training there were other activities undertaken in the month of September. On the 17th there was an introductory workshop in Damongo in the Northern region of Ghana. This after the Resource Team was invited by the leadership of the Catholic community that place to come and introduce the programme there. Twelve members of the youth leadership team were taken through an overview of the programme. They expressed the desire to have the programme functioning in the place and the readiness to support the Resource Team with free accommodation for the training of Volunteer Facilitators as part of their local contribution. The Resource Team is putting structures in place to reach out to them in 2019.
Finally, there was a fourth and final outreach workshop in Wa zone – the Upper West region of Ghana. This time round the venue was in Tumu Deanery. The Team arrived at Tumu on the 21st and were warmly received and accommodated by the FIC Brothers in their Tumu Community House. On the 22nd, 26 young adults from Tumu and its neighbouring parishes and others from Tertiary schools in the area were gathered for the workshop. Exploring the sessions together the participants happy to have more of such coming their way from the SELL Team. The main purpose of the workshop was to introduce the workshop to that particular deanery and to select suitable Volunteers to be trained as facilitators of the programme.
The Resource Team is immensely grateful for the support from several people which made it possible for these activities to be carried on successfully. We are forever indebted with gratitude to our generous benefactors whose resources underpin the progress of the programme. The Presentation Brothers continue to support the Resource Team as it is their programme the team is running. For the various support and for their presence to encourage the Volunteer Facilitators during the Tamale training session, we cannot thank them enough. We appreciate the FIC Brothers in the Tumu Community House for their hospitality and support to the Team during our outreach workshop in Tumu. We pray that they find fulfilment in their ministry as they also serve young people. We are ever grateful also to our Volunteer Facilitators for the sacrifices they continue to make to ensure that the programme reaches out to other young people. We continue to prayer for them and their families that they may find peace and live peace as they preach peace. To all who are with and for us in all we do, thanks.
SELL RESOURCE TEAM, GHANA

Facilitators from Kpandai community in Tamale crossing a river to get to the training

Tamale Facilitators with Parishioners of SS Peter and Paul Parish

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July Report

8/19/2018

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Dear Friends,
Warm greetings to all of you our cherished friends and readers for staying tuned as we beseeched you in our previous updates. It is a pleasuring pleasure to always come your way with updates from our activities knowing that you long to read from us. We therefore with much gratitude bring you updates for the month of July, 2018.

In our updates for the month of June we shared that we had finished with the mentoring on the Peace Building Unit in the Navrongo-Bolgatanga zone and so continuing with the mentoring in the Tamale zone, on the second weekend of the month, the Team was at the communities of Blessed Sacrament and Kumbungu for workshops on the Peace Building Unit. At Blessed Sacrament a total of 27 young adults were reached with 5 of them being members of Sacred Heart community. Among the participants were students of University for Development Studies and Tamale Nursing Training College. In Kumbungu a total of 17 young adults were encountered of which 7 were Muslims. Accompanying the Team members to the field were some of the trainee mentors, two at Blessed Sacrament and one at Kumbungu.

On the following weekend we were at Salaga community still in the Tamale zone for the final mentoring workshop on the Peace Building Unit. Accompanying the Team was a trainee mentor from Kpandai to support the facilitators and also to get his first experience of mentoring in the field. The young people reached in that workshop were 22 in number.

The review of the mentoring training with our trainee mentors, as shared with you in our previous updates, took place at the Tamale Catholic Youth Centre from the 20th to the 22nd of the month. Together we explored the experiences of mentoring in the field – the insights and the challenges; the experiences of the training on basic counseling skills and its application in the field; explored tasks and relationship management and finally discussed what things the mentors could do to enhance the publicity of SELL as a programme and in the process reach out to more beneficiaries. It was such a lovely encounter as the mentors participated actively. Present with the Team was the Brother linking the Resource Team with the Presentation Brothers, Brother Bernard Agaziire. He was supportive and was also impressed with the enthusiasm of the trainee mentors.
From the 27th to the 29th of July the Team conducted a Life Choice Day training for teachers of some selected Senior High Schools in the Navrongo-Bolgatanga zone. A total of 10 teachers from 5 schools, that is 2 teachers per school, were trained. The training took place at the Education Outreach Centre in Logre. The essence of the training was to equip the teachers with the skills and processes so as to enable them go back to their various schools and then organise workshops for their students. The Life Choice Day Programme is an auxiliary programme of SELL Programme Ghana which is developed to reach out to students in Senior High Schools enlightening them to build on their self-esteem and make appropriate relationship and career choices. It is hoped that the teachers as they expressed their joy for being part of the training and who are also child friendly will endeavour to organise workshops to help their students, when schools resume from the summer break.

The Team therefore wishes to thank you for staying with us from the beginning of the year to this far and bring to your attention that the Resource Room will be closed till September 3 as Team members go on leave in the month of August. Meanwhile, in September there shall be two trainings on the Community Building Unit in both Navrongo-Bolgatanga and Tamale zones.

As we bid you adieu, best wishes in all you do!

SELL RESOURCE TEAM, GHANA

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JANUARY, 2019 UPDATES

December 16th, 2018

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