Experience a people-to-people tour of Ghana-Togo-Benin with in-country guides/hosts. Meet, eat and sleep (over :-) a night with Ghanaian Rotarians. Connect with a school community in remote Ghana. Learn more Sunday, 5/17, 4:30 pm in Ayer, at a pre-trip meeting. (Zoom available.)
Co-led by Susan Tordella, president elect of Littleton Rotary, she co-founded Learning Up in 2022 to to benefit a school offers alternatives to child labor. Co-led by Sos Zinsouply of USA-Togo-Benin. Limited to 12, a few spaces are open for the 8/28-9/13 trip. Contact susan.tordella@gmail.com, 978-846-2811.
Take a trip off the beaten track into National Geographic in this memorable two-week tour of Ghana-Togo-Benin. You will enjoy two optional home stays, stay in modern hotels, and travel in-country by an air-conditioned van. Depending on airfare (about $1900 right now) the other costs will be $2,500-$3,000, inclusive.
Susan Tordella, trip co-leader, first went to Ghana in 2017 and made a short visit to the MacDellar Preparatory School in the Kpando Region. In 2022, she co-founded a non-profit to support staff salaries of a school founded by a charismatic, energetic, dedicated principal, Mark Tillah. He started the school with less than a dollar and feels called to help poor children. Susan co-led a group of 12 on a two-week tour of Ghana in 2023.
The trip includes a visit to an isolated island in the middle of Lake Volta, one of the largest human-made lakes in the world. Children there have no access to public education because teachers do not want to live or work in such a remote location with no electricity or running water.
The MacDellar School provides room and board for about 30 students from the islands. Without the school, they would be subject to child labor, fishing and farming with their parents. Enrollment is 180 in the K-8 school. We will hang out with the students and offer English conversations for them to learn this second language. Many other cultural stops in Ghana and the three countries are included.
Simon Awumey, past president of the Rotary Club of Ho, Ghana, is partnering with the Rotary Club of Littleton to apply for a global grant to provide better facilities for the boarding students and more classrooms. Simon and Susan have established a relationship that includes Simon’s brother Samuel Awumey of Waterbury, Conn. Both brothers have already provided assistance in projects to benefit the school.
Take a look at the slides for highlights of days of the tour, which starts in Togo and Benin for the first nine days. Trip co-leader Sos Zinsouply, of Lancaster, Mass., has arranged home stays with family and friends in Benin as well as cultural and historical stops.
Please feel free to call Susan, (retired) at 978-846-2811 or susan.tordella@gmail.com. People are welcome to join the pre-trip meeting for more information (no obligation!) at Susan’s home in Ayer on Sunday, May 17, 4:30 pm, in person or by Zoom.
The deadline to join the trip is June 30, because of time required to obtain vaccines and visa requirements. Best to commit now to this tremendous opportunity to step outside of our country, which has so many creature comforts and educational and financial opportunities to visit a developing country 6,000 miles away, and make people-to-people connections. Slides of the tour can be seen here.
Information about Learning Up, a (501C3) US based organization for education co-founded by Susan Tordella, president elect of the Rotary Club of Littleton, MA
www.learningupnow.wordpress.com