Work in Nasia

29th April 2024

Black History Month, February, is over. But in the daily work for our nonprofit organiza-tion the present is just as important as history. In 2008 Jennifer Kamm, head of the “Förderverein des Waisenhauses Nasia Ghana”, was in Nasia, in the north of Ghana, for the first time. She was the first ever white European to visit Nasia and worked there in the local school. She quickly realized that there were children joining the class who had no home. Together with the principal of the school, Samual Idabeni, they repurposed an old factory hall as a safe place for these chil-dren to reside in. The citizens of Nasia were so grateful for her support, that they gave her a piece of land. There she started to build the first house of the orphanage. After returning to Berlin, she wanted to continue supporting children without families in Nasia and set up a private organization. A few years later most of the orphans had sponsors and the project was growing. In 2018 it received the official status of a nonprofit organization.

We do not want to repeat the mistakes our an-cestors made when they arrived at Ghana’s Gold Coast a few hundred years ago. Instead, we want to support the citizens of Nasia, especially the children. To avoid a white savior complex we just ask what is needed next and then try to realize it. In our work as outsiders, we simply do what the welfare state does in Germany.

The about 50 children currently living in our orphanage cannot live with their families because of multiple reasons. Some of them lost both parents due to illnesses or accidents. From Nasia, the nearest hospital is in the next largest town Walewale, 23 km away. There is no ambulance. In case of an emergency a cab or a private person is needed to drive to the hospital. The medical care in the area is costly and the hygienic conditions are bad. Therefore, there is a high risk of contracting infectious diseases that can often be fatal. But most of the children in our orphanage are half-or-phans. These children often have many siblings and their one parent is not able to single-handedly financially provide for the whole family, as there is no government financial aid. Some of the children in our orphanage also left their parents because of physical abuse. And there are others who have been abandoned by their parents because of their physical or mental disabilities.

To improve the local situation, we are building a pump to get access to clean groundwater, which will help prevent infectious diseases. The citizens of Nasia have asked our organization for a power connection, so that they don’t need to interrupt their work by sunset, for a public school where children do not need expensive materials to join the class and for a social worker as a first contact person when there are family problems. Furthermore, we set up a weaving mill as a training company. Our youngest and biggest project is an infirmary. It will take years for it to be completed and able to offer medical care in Nasia, but we have already started. At the same time there is currently a need to build new classrooms for our primary school and we are also still taking care of the about fifty children in our orphanage. Therefore, we need all the support we can get. By contrib-uting to our nonprofit’s mission, you can be sure that your donation will arrive in Nasia. Nobody in Germany is paid by our organiza-tion, the only paid workers are the locals in Nasia we create the jobs for. There is also the possibility to get directly engaged by volunteering at the orphanage.

© Förderverein des Waisenhauses Nasia Ghana e.V.

Sophie Goetze, second head of the organization, contact information:

Web: www.nasia-ghana.de 

Contact: info@nasia-ghana.de 

Phone: 030 / 22466100 

Instagram: www.instagram.com/waisen-haus_ghana