In northern Ghanaian villages, women tend bees and throw pots, generating products for the micro-businesses they established with the help of GSSW doctoral student Ziblim Abukari (MSW '06). Now their work is also helping to educate their children.
The first person in his family to have any formal education, Abukari saw the effect he could have on "the most vulnerable people in society," and decided to pursue a graduate degree in social work in the U.S. Back home in Ghana, women and children are already benefitting from that education, through a new non-profit organization he's created to combat illiteracy.
Turning traditions into a business
Before coming to GSSW, Abukari worked with the Philadelphia-based nonprofit Opportunities Industrialization Centers International (OICI). During his five-year stint, he traveled to 11 small, subsistence-farming communities in his native northern Ghana to provide training in sanitation and farm management. But his favorite work was helping groups of low-income women develop "micro-enterprises"--traditional tasks that women were doing on a small scale that could be expanded into profit-making enterprises.
The women were making pottery, but it was thick and heavy, and it was dried using a crude method of firing, Abukari explains. "So we tried to harness what the women already knew," he says, "but we also introduced innovation so they could make pottery that was more salable."
Sweet success
Because all of his trainees were illiterate, Abukari had to find alternative ways to present information. "We used a lot of symbols and pictures," he recalls. OICI provided each group with a kiln and a hand-powered potter's wheel. Abukari trained the women to use their new tools to produce lighter pots that were more attractive to buyers.
Some of Abukari's most groundbreaking training was in beekeeping. "Traditionally, beekeeping was male-dominated, so it was strange idea to the women," Abukari says.
He taught the Ghanaian women to produce and sell large quantities of high-quality honey. By the time he left OICI, the demand for the micro-enterprises' honey outpaced production.
Combating illiteracy
To ensure that the fledgling businesses were sustainable, Abukari linked groups to buyers who would purchase products on a continuing basis, and he taught basic financial concepts such as calculating income, profit and loss.
He also created Ghana Bihi ("Ghana Children" in his native Dagbani language), which will channel the women's micro-business profits toward educational services for their children. The organization will provide scholarships, school uniforms, books, supplies, even bicycles for children who would otherwise have to walk as far as five miles to attend school.
Looking to the future
In GSSW's doctoral program, Ziblim is studying risk and resilience among children and youth and gaining advanced research skills. He plans to complete his course work and comprehensive examinations later this year.
"Ziblim came to Denver to learn the program and research skills necessary to be a key player in the design of social services and policies in Ghana," says his academic advisor Jeff Jenson, GSSW's Phillip D. and Eleanor G. Winn Professor for Children and Youth at Risk. "I'm very impressed with all the things Ziblim has already accomplished in his native country, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the how his training at GSSW will contribute to his future work."
