Akwaba means Welcome

Hello everyone, it has taken me longer than I thought to write the first issue of my blog.  I will try to make the following ones more frequent.


So, I started this blog to share my experiences while I am in Accra, Ghana, participating in the IBM Corporate Services Corps program. 

The Corporate Service Corps was launched in 2008 to help provide IBMers with high quality leadership development while delivering high quality problem solving for communities and organizations in emerging markets. The program empowers IBM employees as global citizens by sending groups of 10 - 15 individuals from different countries with a range of skills to an emerging market for four week community-based assignments. During the assignment, participants perform community-driven economic development projects working at the intersection of business, technology, and society. 
 
My particular project, is in Accra, Ghana and my group will be working with the Ghanaian Ministry of Health.  

Ghana is located in West Africa and was formerly called the Gold Coast, because of both the Gold in the country and the slave trade.  It has a population of 24 million and 4 million live in Accra, the Capital.  Accra is on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and the weather is tropical; hot and humid generally.

I arrived in Accra, Ghana on Saturday, April 14.  Unfortunately, I came down with the flu while visiting Nigeria right before my arrival in Ghana, so I did not get to meet the rest of the Corporate Services Corps team on Saturday.

On Sunday, April 15, I was able to meet with my team when we went on a short tour of Accra.  I plan to upload some of the other pictures in the upcoming days.  But there is a picture of the entire IBM team (12 in total) from all over the world.

The team is made up of a Brazilian from Sao Paolo, a Chinese from Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, 2 from India, 2 Americans (myself included), German, Irish (by way of Australia) and 2 Australians.  We all have various jobs within IBM, ranging from marketing to finance to project management.  Everyone is so excited to be in Ghana and to work on the project.  Also we are working with CDC Development Solutions (CDS), who are the implementation partners and are helping to coordinate all the logistics.

So far, I have found the Ghanaian people to be very hospitable and easy mannered.  They are so willing to help and they are very proud of their culture.  The food is great and spicy; I will discuss food in more detail on my next blog.  I need to get some pictures to add to it.

IBM Ghana 8 CSC team and Maeve from CDS (on your far left)

Drum making shop in open market called Arts Center.