From Twitter

Celebrating World Humanitarian Day, this film from @infoasaid shows how communication helps in emergencies http://t.co/WuWQZE3 #WHD2011 Original Tweet 2 weeks 6 days ago

30 years of #BBCPashto includes a decade of ground-breaking radio soap opera (via @HuffPostUK) http://t.co/UjUpJPm Original Tweet 3 weeks 1 day ago

The BBC World Service Trust is the BBC's international charity. It uses the creative power of media to reduce poverty and promote human rights.

The British Council is the UK's international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. As well as education, it runs programmes in the arts, science, sport, governance and English language.

Home › Ghana

"We offend the gods and so the rains do not come"

Taking charcoal to market, Wa, northern GhanaCharcoal is big business in Africa. According to the World Future Council, 80% of Africans rely on wood or charcoal for energy and 4 million hectares of forest are felled each year on the continent, twice the world average. But for many, there is no alternative. Augustine Yelfaanibe spoke to charcoal seller Grace.

 
My name is Grace. I am 20 years old and I come from Boro, a village on the Wa-Dorimon road in northern Ghana. Growing up over the past ten years there have been a lot of changes. Now there are poor rains, low yields, strange diseases, and excessive heat both in the day and night. The nights are also sometimes very hot or very cold.
 
All this makes life unbearable and we are frequently sick. When it is hot, the sleep at night becomes uncomfortable and I do not rest enough before the next day’s jobs begin. It is a hardship.
 
Since I was 15, I started burning and selling charcoal to support myself. At the moment, I have teamed up with two others in the village. Together with my friends, I cut and burn charcoal every week and carry it to sell in Wa. A basin of charcoal sells at Ghc 5 (GBP 2) at the moment. Today is my turn and so the money we are going to get from this sale will come to me. I expect to get about Ghc 15. During periods that we cannot burn charcoal, we cut and sell firewood.
 
Since my childhood, it is the same size of land that my parents have been cultivating. It has not changed, but before they harvested enough to feed us. Now they farm and what they get cannot even support the family far less talk of selling part of the harvest to meet some other household needs. Life is just a struggle because of the changing weather we see all the time.
 
Unlike my friends Linda and Vida, my parents did not send me to school. I remain in the house and help my parents on the farm as well as do household chores. I would like to learn some handicraft work so that I can be self-reliant but my parents cannot afford to help me to realise this dream. My involvement in the charcoal business is to save some money so that I will get money to pay to learn and acquire a job.
 
I can see that the weather is changing but I do not really know what is responsible for all these woes. I think it is because of our bad attitudes. We offend the gods and so the rains do not come. I believe that if we change our lifestyles, things would become better - the rains will be good and we will harvest enough, eat and live better. But the hardship is forcing everyone including me to find other ways to survive.

Interview conducted and translated from Dagaare by Augustine Yelfaanibe.