Confused but Understanding?

OK after a conversation with my dad two days ago, a conversation with a friend yesterday and thinking this morning I am really excited/anxious and so I just have to write about it.

I have really been struggling this past year on the fact that my project is so limited in the people that it is helping and constantly facing the reality that I love so many people in Ghana and my project is strictly helping those from Osu Children's Home and no one else.

This past month I have been faced with a lot of difficult decisions and most of them I haven't even made yet and are still hanging over my head but I think I may have gotten somewhere today.

See the reality of Ghana, and third world countries in general, is that it is not just the children in orphanages that need help. There are so many cases that slip through the cracks that people don't see.

A friend of mine has just turned 18. His parents are both dead but they died when he was older so rather than going into a home his best friend's family took him in to raise him. Unfortunately, they ran out of money to continue supporting him and he is being evicted of the place he currently stays due to the fact that he is now 18 and now an "adult". He is homeless and essentially still a child (he just got someone to pay his school fees so he is a freshmen in high school). Technically he is not in an orphanage but he still needs help.

Another friend of mine is 16 and his father just needed to have an operation to remove a tumor. His father spent all of his money on the operation and now has no money to give his son to buy food...he is not an orphan but he still goes to sleep many nights a week without food in his stomach.

Another friend of mine is 17. He lives on his own in a room. He gets paid a small amount a month to play football and then finds friends to help him pay the rest of his rent. Two weeks ago it rained and the pressure from the water under his cement floor burst through and flooded his room. He has a hole in the floor he sleeps on and most of his things are ruined. His mother is dead but his father is still alive and he was never put into an orphanage.

The list of these stories goes on and on.

And so as I face these hard decisions of whether my project will be long term or if I will move on to something else I have at least one thing figured out: My work in Ghana is not over, and through registering All Hands On Deck for Africa in the US I will have the opportunity to create new projects and programs that might eventually replace the one I have going now. I refuse to be prideful and continue a project if it doesn't seem that it is working as I had originally planned. (I am not saying Mawuli Apeme is not working, I am just saying that because it is such a financial commitment the benefits and costs need to be weighed.)

So as I write up a description of All Hands on Deck for Africa and what it is about I will include: Aims to provide sponsorship and financial support to families who would otherwise be forced into the possible abandonment of their children. Instead our support and sponsorship will allow children to develop in a family environment. It is still working towards my same goal of preventing orphanages from growing and breaking the cycle of poverty but through a new method.

I know that this is not a revolutionary idea and seems pretty basic but it opens up a lot of doors for me. A year from now I am going to have a completely new set of skills and by the time I finish University I expect that I am going to be able to come up with a sustainable business model that could support itself. But until then I am not going to sit around and wait. I will register All Hands On Deck for Africa in the United States and continue to help in the ways I know how until I am more educated on where to go from there. Who knows where I will be in 5 years- it could be anywhere. It could be getting into micro-finance, continuing with the non-profit path, or having a for-profit business on the side that flows into All Hands on Deck for Africa.

I refuse to limit myself and confine myself to a box. These next four months are going to determine a lot about my different ideas and I am prepared to take the best route even if that means that my original idea of a group home being long term is not financially feasible at this time due to the governments lack of funding.

Osu Children's Home is not the only place in Ghana that needs my help and the more time I spend in the community of Accra and submerging myself in the culture the clearer that becomes. I think I have been scared to admit that my focus is no longer completely on Osu Children's Home because everyone has been expecting that of me. But the truth is that my work here is so much larger than Osu Chidlren's Home. I will continue to spend a few hours there each week but emotionally, at this point in time, that is all I can handle and I need to be ok with that.

I am so thankful that I have such supportive parents that are behind me in any decision that I choose to make and I hope that you too, can be as supportive and back me with the difficult decisions I have to make ahead of me.

While I love sharing my story and journey with all of you, there is incredible pressure that comes with it knowing that everyone is having their own thoughts and opinions about the work I am doing. So I am also asking all of you to be ok with the fact that I am learning, growing, and having my own beliefs challenged daily and that I want to continue to be honest with you all.

So this is where I am on my journey. Confused but understanding?