Report on 1st Kabissa Meetup in Kumasi (Ghana) and Zack's Site Filming Project - September 22nd to 24th, 2009

Zack was picked up at exactly 11:45am on Tuesday September 22 from the MV Explorer which docked at the Tema Harbour in the early hours of the 22^nd by officials of Elizka Relief Foundation which was led by Kofi Kankam.

Immediately after picking him up, the team made a three-hour journey to Cape Coast in the Central Region and arrived at the premises of Cape Deaf in the company of officials from Friends of the handicapped International – led by Mr. Kofi Odum – whom they picked on their way to Cape Coast.

Upon arrival at the premises the team was entreated to some wonderful dance and drumming display show which was performed by the Blind and Deaf Students with the former being the drummers and latter dancers respectively.  Zack made clearly his intentions when he immediately started the filming project with these wonderful performances.

After the performances we were conducted through the activities and projects carried out by the students which included poultry, cloth weaving, animal rearing, batik making, screen printing, painting and art works.

We left the school of Cape Deaf after almost three and half hours interaction with the school and headed toward Kumasi in the Ashanti region. The team arrived in Kumasi almost at mid-night and Zack immediately checked into the Golden Tulip hotel where he had already made his reservation. The rest of them left for their various abodes to rest and prepare for the D-day which was the 23^rd on which we were to have the 1^st Kabissa Meetup in Ghana; Kumasi to be precise.

On the early hours of the Meetup; Zack was picked up around half past nine by Kofi Kankam from his hotel to the Meetup venue at the Ghana National Cultural Centre in Kumasi. The Meetup was scheduled to take-off at 10am and by 9:45am thirty Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have completed the Participant’s Registration Form and seated in anticipation of the outset of the event at 10am. In all 54 CSOs participated in the event.

Although, the event was scheduled to take-off at 10am; it delayed for almost thirty minutes before taking off with an open prayer.

After the opening prayer, Kofi Kankam gave out a welcome address after which all the participants introduced themselves one after the other. All participation organizations were then given the opportunity to make presentations of their organizations – name, mission, objectives, activities, projects, challenges, etc. This exercise which was extremely interesting lasted for well over two and half hours after which participants were supposed to go in for their lunch.

However; due to the interest generated for the event and importance attached to it, participants opted to be served in their seats and continue with the next segment which was the Kabissa section and handled by Kofi Kankam.

Kofi Kankam elaborated on Kabissa and its activities, numerous opportunities and tools they have made available on their website to support the work of CSOs in Africa.

He touched on tools like the Blog, WIKI, Twitter, Map, Groups, etc. Moreover; after his explanation on the Kabissa tools and opportunities he offered the opportunity for questions and answers on which he was extremely excellent on handling their questions. Kofi Kankam then made mention on the need for setting out a local Kabissa ICT Network of which all organizations present at the meeting expressed their profound interest in becoming members of the network. Participants then requested when the network shall be ushered in, upon this; Kofi Kankam advised detailed information about the proposed network shall be sent out to all members through their email contacts.

The programme after this moved on to the next session where Zack took the centre stage and engaged participants with an open forum questions and answers session which was so interesting and worthwhile.

The event after this session came to a close at exactly 3:35pm.  

It was realized from the questionnaire giving out on project site filming that most of the organizations wanted to have a project site filming but time was extremely limited for Zack. Infact, the filming exercise by Zack actually added a special touch to the programme and really boosted the moral of participants and also gave them hope for positive actions coming their way.

After the Meetup; Zack in the company of Elizka’s team and officials of Street Children Development Foundation, led by their executive director – George Baffour Owusu Afriyie – went directly to the offices and project site of Street Children Development Foundation at Kejetia to undertake a project site filming exercise for the organization.

This exercise lasted for about an hour and half after which Zack was led back to his hotel to relax and prepare for a more tedious task the next day.

As early as 6am on the next day – Thursday September 24^th, 2009 – Zack was picked up by Kofi Kankam and his colleagues at his hotel and headed towards Wenchi and Banda in the Brong Ahafo region to undertake a Project Site Filming exercise for Resource Link Foundation. The journey from the Ashanti region to these sites was about six and half hours and therefore the team needed to be driving in and out for about thirteen hours on this day. There were extremely interesting projects that was covered during this exercise.

Upon returning from the place at about 7pm, Zack had interview session with Kofi Kankam on Elizka Relief Foundation, during which Kofi elaborated on the organization’s thematic scope of capacity building and human empowerment, its vision of assisting civil society organizations to be well empowered politically, economically, socially, and technologically, to enable them determine confidently the scope of their development.

He was also talk ed about Elizka’s priority areas of ICT4D, Research for Development (R4D), Community Development, and Women in Development.

Moreover, he appealed to the institutions concerned to come to their aid with ICT equipment and facilities toward the development of their ICT Resource Centre Project, and also in running the ICT network for CSOs in the Ashanti Region. Furthermore; he appealed to organizations to support them in their Street Children ICT Development Project and also accelerated growth of Agricultural through ICT project for farmers in the country.

Following the successful completion of the interview, the Elizka team led by Kofi Kankam took off from Kumasi with Zack at exactly 10:15pm toward Tema to enable Zack meet his returning time of 4am on the ship. The team arrived at the MV Explorer at the Tema harbor with Zack by 3:30am and by 3:40am; Zack was back on the MV Explorer.