UPDATES FOR FEBRUARY, 2019

Dear Readers,
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Life is enriched when rich experiences are lived and shared. Warmest regards from all of us here in the SELL Resource Team as we share with you in this episode of our monthly updates the activities undertaken and the experiences gathered.
On the first weekend of February, that’s from 1st to 3rd, there was an outreach workshop at the University for Development Studies (UDS) in the Community Building Unit of the programme as part of our tertiary outreach drive. All the sessions to the unit were explored and the participants were enlightened on the ways by which they can help contribute to the building and sustaining of genuine communities of love, peace and shared responsibility.
The first session of the 5th round of trainings of the Volunteer Facilitators took place on the second weekend in the Catholic Youth Centre @ Tamale for the Tamale zone. These young adults were taken through the Wisdom of Traditions Unit. This unit invites the youth to relook at their history or their social and spiritual backgrounds and how that has influenced their present individual and collective social and spiritual lives. They are guided to explore the four sessions as below:

• Where does wisdom live? This session is to help the young adults discover where wisdom makes its home or resides. They were asked to explore the questions: In what ways is the wisdom of our people communicated to us? Where does our community store its wisdom so that it can be passed on to us? Going through these questions with the participants, it emerged that wisdom can be stored and communicated to generations to come through proverbs, songs, stories (written and oral) and rituals.
• Our History – in this session participants are led to look at the customs and traditions they follow today, the customs and traditions of their parents and or guardians, those of their grandparents and those of their great grandparents. Through this they get to understand the relationship each generation had or has with the divine and that of the relationship with the environment around them. We do this to help young people to appreciate the richness of the culture of each generation and to learn to inculturate when and where necessary those inspirations into their daily individual and communal lives.
• The Universe Story – participants are taken through the timeline of the universe story in this session as an exploration into the scientific perspective of the creation of the universe.

From the Flaring Forth to the Industrial Revolution, participants became aware of how human actions and inactions are gradually affecting the beauty of the earth since their arrival. They are then taken through some remedying tips to help reduce and eventually prevent the destruction of the source of our very existence.

• Our Sexual Health – this final session of the unit invites participants to reflect on how their great grandparents, grandparents and parents dealt with issues concerning sexuality. After this exploration, they are then guided to critically examine how they as young adults deal with issues concerning sexuality and the learnings to take from the past generations.

There was a ritual ceremony to commemorate the ancestors – the people who have gone before us to the netherworld, who lived with for peace and sought happiness in many different ways. Participants were asked to write the names of the people in their families and communities who have passed away and offer prayers for them to God in thanksgiving for the legacies they left behind and that they may find peace wherever they are.
All in all, the training was a successful one. The young people expressed how they have gain new experience by exploring the wisdom of traditions.

The team travelled to Jirapa and Dafiema communities in the Wa zone – Upper West region of Ghana – from the 15th to the 17th of February for workshops on the Self-Awareness Unit. It was the first time the trainee Volunteer Facilitators in those communities conducted facilitation workshops. The Resource Team was present to mentor them and to give them support. The facilitators did marvelously well and the participants engaged the programme properly and called for more of such workshops in their communities. 

From the 22nd to the 24th, there were monitoring workshops in three communities in Tamale in the Wisdom of Traditions Unit. The team was pleased to have the news from the field by the member that went for the monitoring that they were many participants in the workshops that are from different faith backgrounds – that’s there were Muslim participants. This goes a long way to emphasize the ecumenical nature of the programme. The mentors and the facilitators in the field that weekend are reported to have done very well. It is therefore hoped that gradually, the programme will flourish at the grassroot level with this commitment and enthusiasm from the Volunteers.

So, what have we to say? To say that we appreciate the opportunity given in the form of space and time, in health and strength, in voluntarism and sacrifice and in people and materials might be understatement, but we know and trust that all involved know and trust that whatever that is noble, trustworthy, peace binding and is mentioned from deep down the heart as offering in gratitude is enough for all that is good to the good.
JOSHUA ANAMBE
FOR SELL RESOURCE TEAM, GHANA.