Moved to Ghana from the Netherlands for the love of a community

in 2001 I wanted to travel I wanted to help the world I thought and I ended up in Ghana as a volunteer for 6 months in this town I didn't know my neighbors in Holland if I wanted to go and visit FRS I have to make an appointment to go and visit them we were very lucky that we can sustain ourselves with little because there's no help there's no government support here or whatever everywhere it's a little bit different but I really liked it that while I was traveling I was in contact with a lot of locals and I could really you know hear their stories it's not just something small but how I see it I think it has really done a lot even to me it make me a strong woman now so it's so who owns that land at the B us oh okay yes so we have a small patch of forest that we are trying to preserve [Music] meet Pat a passionate Dutch woman who made a life-changing decision to move to Ghana and start the ban women organization driven by Deep desire to empower women and create lasting change she's been dedicated to supporting women in the community ever since in this video we will dive into her Incredible Journey the challenges she's faced and the impact she's made on lives of many women in Ghana my name is Mickey keep watching I'm B and I'm from Holland and in 2001 I wanted to travel I wanted to help the world I thought and I ended up in Ghana as a volunteer for 6 months in this town uh very soon I realized I wasn't helping anybody but myself because yeah I wasn't a trained teacher but they let me teach uh but we were enjoying I was learning learning a lot I was learning about different Lifestyles they're my own I love the mountainous area here and um yeah it was just nice and I could see that me as a teacher it didn't help so much but we started raising some funds so that uh we could at least do something give something back for the valuable time that I also had here so um yeah the schools we renovated them a little bit in the time that that I was here so with help from friends and family back home they send some money and we could do that and then after 6 months I went back to the Netherlands and yeah a couple of years later I came back on vacation still liked it 2005 I came back and then I decided okay I think I would like to live here uh during my time as a volunteer what I really missed was a place around Kumasi area where you can feel at ease where not everybody is calling aony Aon aoni uh where you can just relax but also have some fun have some good foods and I thought okay I think I can do that and I think I can bring it to this little town that I've grown to love so much so yeah so I bought the land with that in [Music] mind I think it's just it's my instinct is my feeling it's not uh love for a man or whatever it's just the love for this community the love for this area I just like I said I love the mountains every day they look different Ghana in general just people are friendly uh we are still free it's not like Ghana is without rules that is really not true but we are still free in a lot of things and uh yeah here in this Village we get the chance to live with nature still also here things have changed of course but uh even at that time I didn't know my neighbors in Holland if I wanted to go and visit friends I have to make an appointment to go and visit them whereas here you can walk for two hours at that time we sometimes you walk for two hours to to another place and still if the person is not there you had a nice walk and then the next day that same person will walk the two hours to come and visit you and that one was like the sociable connection that you could have with people here not saying it wasn't in Holland but in Holland all we did was work and then maybe go to a birthday in the evening and sometimes do something by here I feel like you can be more alive or something yeah when I moved uh with with the hostel with the guest house munar guest house so we started the guest house and I was sustaining myself with Ds I'm doas and I'm from AC just a few minutes from here going and I am AIS and the same VW and the kitchen yes kit where we get our nice food yeah from I think every reviews about food and our Hospitality all right this tree has been here this is the only original thing from when I V yes okay oh so you you you preserve this one okay it's good we getting P that's good that's good um um so here is our dormet the dormit okay yes how many rooms have you got again we have six rooms six rooms okay nice how how much does it cost um we offer um packages so it's either uh BMB or a half board or full board so uh depends on the package that you you take and it also depends on the rate of the but it's about uh 320 for the full uh three meals and then your stay2 20 cities per day per day including Three Square minut oh that's that's that's really good yeah but I'm not sure we can maintain that [Music] yeah so the guest house uh when I just came uh we started at me we started with one room that was finished no electricity and uh I built this website but at that time there were not many websites in Ghana so it was just easy to get some people to come and reg grew it and even up to this day we are still not totally ready with everything but we can sustain I can sustain myself also with very few so that one is is nice and then Co came we are in tourism nothing happens for about a year so uh again we were very lucky that we can sustain ourselves with little because there's no help there's no government support here or whatever of course there were some friends and family who also thought a this B is sitting there in Ghana and I'm not sure she's getting help so they sent something but we were also just eating from we try to eat from our garden like the asantis they don't like to eat the the cafa leaves but we were eating Gava leaves and all those things just to yeah to sustain yourself but also that time it brought peace because there were no guests at first I was also like H maybe we need a pool or we need something we need but you can create your own location so now we have our Shanti tours and we just we take the people to the mountains we take the people to the KY Village there's a very beautiful nature park close by bonu buy it's in K kumu and we just do three and four day tours where we take people around but I think the strong suit of that aanti tour is that we do it with the locals so we have a village tour they will start at the back here they will pass the Farms then go to to town and there's lots of explanation about the Coco about the gavas about Fufu and everything we give a Fufu class but we also take them to niika Nika niik Nika cor yes the coral yes so we take them there and like people will really see like how life in a typical aanti Village is and I think that is our strength for us we know we will never be rich like the people who are at the beach but we don't care yeah we just want to live a life where we are all connected to each other and where we have enough I'm not saying we don't need money but where we can just have enough to live from instead of just making I don't know how much [Music] money so here we have our mango tree it's kind supplies mango for yes I think 3 months four months in mango season yes we make our nice homemade jam from the mango yes mango juice some of our herbs used to be here but during dry season they but they will come back in during the raining season are you like well known where everyone is oh yes yes but most people they they call me by my name and since H in 2001 I was a teacher for they call me Madame Pat so Madame Pat is there from the people who know me from the past but of course small children not everybody in the community knows me also the senior high school there's new students every year so they will just say o oi and now with my children going to the local school they just go to the to the government school here so now I'm Lucy Mommy T mommy yes so and I like that one a lot yes well your kidss were born here so it was easy right so how how was the Beth like a lot of people are scared of having how many kids did you have here two two how was it like uh it was rough but I think child birth is not easy and the second one was way better but there's really people will talk about the the the the local uh uh the health system here but I just went to the local government hospitals and to me it was fine of course certain things that happen it it wouldn't have been good if that would have happened but it's like that but even last year uh I I needed an operation and I just did it in a local hospital also in Epi here and everything went fine we have our Bush here at the back we have avocado so it's so who owns that land at the bus us oh okay yes so we have a small batch of forest that we are trying to preserve yeah and that people don't understand we are not building on it but we just like to have because if you step in there it's nice and cool it's nice and cool [Music] yes so here we have lots of bananas lot of planted Cava kava also then another avocado tree it is very nice yes oh this one is very very nice we are waiting for them how did the organization come by we have been here for many years and we have been running moon and star guest house we have always been been supporting schools and I've been helping out a friend out a Dutch organization with their orphanage and uh during Co time we got a little bit more time my kids also they grew they they grow and that also makes that you are a little bit less busy with them so we decided to to talk with the people here the local people here like what do they need like there's a senior high school here the orphanage was going to stop so what can we do with the building and they said okay it would be nice if we can get some practical classes some from vocational training for some of the ladies in town because some of them are just stuck here because lack of money uh some of them don't have an interest in furthering their educations and uh yeah some of them maybe they got the babies or whatever and they can't go anywhere so it's important that they uh can live an independent life without being uh yeah looking at their parents or at their husbands or boyfriends for for yeah to get by so um and that one yeah it just turned into B women organization b or is not just something small but how I see it I think it's he's doing a great job to the youth especially the ladies in town sometime here Villages like this I think after high school or even ghs you might think oh I just up maybe with pregnancy or with family B you might think this person can go to school cannot do anything so when it came I was like oh it's good because even if the person cannot pursue education she can direct to that sector to get something for herself so it has really done a lot even to me it make me a strong woman now yes because previously let's say I was small girl now I'm growing up because yes from the experiences from the people are getting from outside and also the team workor we are having and at B also is's doing a good job so that's one is for I think for you she has taken care of most of the administrative things so as a foreigner sometimes it's not so easy to go to offices and those things is is boring and it's it takes a long time and this lady she has spent so many hours in the offices last year in air conditioning yeah this year still yes [Music] this we focus on Career Dev development and we do that by creating jobs here at the hostel and then we have a Learning Center in town where we are uh teaching the ladies practical skills at the moment we have hairdressers and uh sewing uh workshop and besides those two things we also feel that it's very important to give them other education because you can be the best sress but if you can't run your business then nothing is going to happen so we give extra classes uh think about Sisterhood uh Medical classes business classes so a lot to to fill their pocket also at the moment we are having a volunteer here and he is a psychologist so this morning we had a workshop just about how to deal with certain feelings and yeah so and in future we are fundraising for an ICT Center uh and in future we are are envisioning like this business hub for ladies and like we already have the simers we have the hairdresser so if we can get the decoration and we can get shoe makers and whatever so that for anything that you need you can just come to Bunker women organization so and we focus on sustainability also so the center should be able to run itself in the end to to be a volunteer you have to have something think that will help us also so even though volunteering with us is not for free we don't charge the the amounts for I don't know Administration and all that but we do have to charge for your stay here because you are getting your three meals a day and also in Holland if you go and volunteer at I don't know the food bank they are not going to feed you so you have to pay for that one yourself but besides that so you are your volunteering is your time you are giving your time but we also need to get something out of your time instead of us being very busy with the volunteers and we can't do our actual job so with us it's not a way of making money but it's just sustain yeah to sustain and so when people want to come we ask them okay what can you bring what what do you have to offer and and that one I can see it works really well because then you get the people that you want to have in our volunteering there's nothing with children it's just and there's nothing with selfies and cute little H all those things so we just want somebody so at this moment we have uh the psychologist who is helping and another lady who is helping with computer training for uh my co-workers so it's like really things that that make sense but if you come here we have somebody uh in aqua I have two people in aqua who will come and pick you from the airport and who will show you which bus to take and and and all that so you have yeah you arrive safe because it can be very intimidating to to come to the airport and then you get into the bus they will make sure you have a local SIM card and yeah we will guide you and we will explain to you like how to get to us um sometimes we also send a guard to pick you from aisu area and then it's like that but also with the screening for the volunteers we no longer take people who have no travel experience or who again we don't have we could make the time to hold people by their hands but we want we don't want to make that time because we have other things to [Music] do my name is Shirley I'm from Switzerland and I came here like um one and a half weeks ago and uh yeah I saw the organization online and I was very impressed about the goals of the of the organization um I think it's very important to empower women in different ways um to show how how you can do that and um yeah to kind know share different experience with each other and learn from each other and I saw that this is one of the main things here and yeah then I went in contact with Pat and she's very sympathic and very nice so yeah we were in really good connection and I decided to come here I arrived like 6 weeks ago but it's the first time in Ghana I really like it yes I saw different parts um everywhere it's a little bit different but I really liked it that while I was traveling I was in contact with a lot of locals and I could really you know hear their stories um what is important for them we also exchange some stories so I was talking about my country they were talking about their country and I think this is very valuable to yeah to listen to each other and to learn from each other and to see the differences but also to see what is the [Music] same yes so you are in the the main living room of the hostel um we also sometimes have people who are doing like like digital Nomads and then sometimes outside is too hot so they will use this as their workspace uh also our ladies who are working here and some of them also know how to sew so sometimes here is I know how to sew so sometimes we make our stuff here especially when it's in busy season for uh the sewing Workshop they are learning their own things then we don't always want to come in with our aprons and those things so we also keep up the shop uh and and keep the things so besides this being the place for our guest it's also our shop so already by coming to us you are supporting us you are supporting the whole chain so uh but if you want to buy some souvenirs then you help a little bit more so we have some aprons here uh this is the normal apron this is the chef's apron so the have run and we see that lots of people like the ky ky so we have to bright colors then at the same time we are also selling some of the assessments our students in the Learning Center I think you can tell that better we have a slab for our students and every two weeks we do assessment with combination with their Madam so if this week we are making Tres we make sure that we provide the materials for them and then we had assessment after that we come and hang it sometime even write their name the one who will make the if this one was made by Madame Pat then you see Madame part's name here so as you are buying it you see this side is from one student that means you are supporting us [Music] also the books the notebooks then we have like this is a table set so it has a table runner and placements and everything inside uh here in the guest house also we don't use napkins we have the fabric napkins so we are also selling them we are selling our t-shirts so that's it gets promoted all over the [Music] world by women uh it could be youth also because we see a lot of Youth stranded also we work together with a youth organization in Bano and uh they even have their office in our uh in the building and and um the guy running that he he took an apprentice also a lady because they have a printing shop so again another job for a lady in banko um but there was already a Youth Organization and I think us yeah it's like Dorcas is here my coworker uh our other coworker is is is a guy but we can see that women it's sometimes really hard for them and and I think when we can empower the ladies they will Empower their children so for instance if we do uh computer classes in future if ladies see how important it is to use a computer not only to watch YouTube but also for other things then they can also stimulate their children to do something else behind the computer and we see that for instance in kassi there are big it companies there but the children from the village they they don't get to work there because they already lack so much knowledge in that sense because we all yeah women lots of women here they think what do we have to do with a computer or and ICT is still on the Blackboard so I think when we tackle the women they can also spread it's been uh mixed it's it's been very difficult but other things have been easy it's just it's a mix it's like it's still doable I think if you come to Ghana you have to have a lot of resilience and you have to stay uh close to yourself and it's easy to lose yourself in relationships uh and sometimes you just you have to keep your guard up but my guard like it's not there naturally so and if I put my guard up too much I've seen that also then you are not not no longer the person you are so it's better to sometimes get burnt and you move on the building process in Ghana is uh uh uh it's hard it's hard uh part of the buildings uh I found a contractor at that time and he built it when I wasn't here so I can see part of the building has built with sand instead of cement so you have to be really really careful in in doing that uh for now we have uh the best building contractor so for now we are we are cool and even people who come to me do you know somebody who can build we have that person who is doing a lot of work so but it's it's been hard but you also learn a lot I know a lot about building [Laughter] [Music] now for us even though we have our fundraisers which are important we need our ICT Center so if you are not able to come then please donate to uh we are on the platform why donate and donate for our ICT Center but I think for us as uh an empowerment organization is best if people come and you enjoy our place and we work hard to make everything nice for you and then we get paid and that one goes back into the community I think that is the best thing uh as said you can come and uh stay with us you can do one of our tours but if you are maybe Kumasi based and you don't have so much time uh our food is I think the best that we can offer and um you can come you can uh order lunch buffet from four people going uh you can come and Order barbecue so that you enjoy a nice night or a nice evening or a nice day in nature breathing the fresh air so yeah just come online is uh if you just uh Google uh um something about bwo you will get us but we have a website ww. uh travel with bw.com um you find us on Instagram bw. host physically we are in a in a town called banko yeah it's between um fasi and Mong so it's also perfect when you are on your way to the north you can pass here and Skip Kumasi and from Kumasi you go towards eisu and you come to aasi and then you will meet us from AA also at aisu U Branch towards fi and from fi going you go towards M and the good thing is the road is so easy it's easy and if you search on Google Map bwo hostel you will find it and it will bring you exactly in front of the organization and the hostel [Music]