The Larabanga Project

During my travels to Mole National Park, I was fortunate to meet Toufic. Toufic is a young man studying business in Tamale. He also happens to be from the village of Larabanga, just outside Mole National Park. He was kind enough to share his hometown with me.

Larabanga is a Muslim village with a population of about four thousand. Generally speaking, most of the people in Larabanga are farmers or hunters or both. When Mole National Park was created it meant that the people of Larabanga had to relinquesh a huge swath of their traditional hunting ground. In exchange, the people were promised that all of the tourist trade that would flock to Mole would also prove a boon to Larabanga. Of course, this is yet another example of people being ripped off by the concept of "trickle down economics".

So the people of Larabanga languish, having lost their hunting ground in exchange for a handful of magic beans.

However, there is some hope. Toufic, now in his early twenties, was a member of the first generation of Larabanga that went to school. Unfortunately, he had to go to Mole on foot, some 8km away. He regaled me with stories about being chased by elephants and having his schoolbooks being ripped up by baboons.

As Toufic showed me around his village, he spoke about the need to have a school in Larabanga, and the efforts being made to support the fledgling school. Given the fact that there are 4000 people in Larabanga, there is surely a need. While the school is up and running, it is nowhere near capable of meeting the needs of the village. Yet.

The story is similiar to Omenako, but has different needs. The infrastructure is good, but there is a lack of supplies and teachers. Security is not an issue here, unlike Omenako. Larabanga also lacks the leadership on the ground that Omenako has.

I am hoping that Toufic can become this person. He is smart, ambitious and has great leadership qualities. I am confident that he will be a leader in his community. The problem is that he is twenty-two and is busy with his own studies.

This one is going to take some time, but there is something about helping a Christian and Muslim school in the same country that appeals to my sense of synchronicity.

http://goyestoeverything.com