Comfort Sorkpor was a mother of three, grandmother of four and great-grandmother to one. She was one of Rural Health Collaborative’s biggest skeptics until she wasn’t, eventually joining as the Director of Education and leading the team with grit, a deep well of knowledge, and humor that she shared freely. She was a devoted…
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Thank you Heather!
The conversation began in her parent’s basement in the summer of 2011. Jason and I were driving across the country, en route to our year living in Boston. Heather, my good friend from college, was one of our stops on the way. She was living in Fort Collins with her parents and husband Jason, working…
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Ten years later, there are 71 Kekeli Women in Akatsi!
The first training of the Kekeli Women was in 2011. It took place under a large mango tree, although we had to shift around because the ants loved the mango tree as much as we did. We moved from the tree, to an empty elementary school room, to a room at the university. The women…
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International Women’s Day 2019: Balance for Better
When we sat down to revisit the direction of Rural Health Collaborative a few years ago, we recommitted to our vision of ‘investing in women’ as foundational to our work. The avenue we have taken for this is through health, by providing opportunities for women to be community health promoters. When the nursing students from…
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Thankful
At the Rural Health Collaborative, we have always been working across oceans. With our team spanning Ghana and the U.S., we have navigated different time zones, challenging mobile service and internet reception, and different cultural norms—some of which we are aware of and some of which we surely are not. A year and a half…
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Weeks 2 and 3, in photos
Our final weeks were filled with so much laughter, reconnection, new hurdles, old hurdles, new and old friends both Ghanian and from stateside. We thought it best shown rather than written about this time.
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Introducing a Blood Pressure Screening Program
The Kekeli Women have been asking us about this for years. We’ve thought it would be a good idea. We’ve wanted to make it happen. We just had to figure out how to make it work. This May, in collaboration with nursing students from Point Loma Nazarene University (alma mater to the entire RHC executive…
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Olivia and Jason are moving to Tanzania
My geography of Africa can be a little rough too. Tanzania is on the East side of Africa, famous for being home to Mt. Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti (I’m still figuring out exactly what that is) and adjacent to the tropical island of Zanzibar that rests in the Indian Ocean- this is what I really have…
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What is Kekeli?
Kekeli Women are a group of women trained as community health promoters, taking education they have received through formal training to improve health in their own communities. Kekeli means brightness in Ewe, the local language that is spoken in the Volta Region where we work. This is in addition to English, the national language. I…
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Kekeli Teaching
Kekeli ‘old’ and Kekeli ‘new’ met on May 24th for some continuing education and encouragement. They met together under the mango tree near the Sefe Clinic. Below are some photos of their meeting, along with photos from the community education session led by Comfort, who taught to over 3,000 community members. Notice the drumming group…
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