Girl Topia - Take Action Project

I have finished my Girltopia journey. The take action project for this journey was by far the hardest, yet the greatest project I have ever helped put together. For this journey I was supposed to put together and implement a take action project to better someone’s lifestyle.

            So I took the trip to Ghana to its highest and planted trees with the Ghana Girl Guides. Planting trees was a great experience but putting together the project was an experience in itself as well.

            I contacted the various contacts at the World Association Girl Guides and Girl Scouting to get a contact in Ghana – the first was in March.  It was very frustrating over the next few months trying to get the Ghana Girl Guides and then to get a contact in the area of the country that we would be located. I didn’t know that it would be close to four months before I be able to actually get the plan in place. We emailed a little back and forth and found a date for the planting that worked. That’s when I wrote a grant from WAGGGS and a mini grant from Discover Green. As part of my application process – I was asking about the budget – what were going to be the cost.  I got deeply discouraged by the numbers I received from my Ghana contact.  To the point I was sure the project wasn’t going to happen.

            I let the adult who was leading my trip know and she got a hold of Mr. Gordon, our transportation connection and a great communicator.   He  was willing to check on the numbers and to contact our contact and see if we could make it work  He gave us reasonable numbers and even ordered trees. I was so glad that I asked for help and that the project was a success!

            We planted our trees within grounds of a small school center. 80 trees planted with 40 girls from the US, Ghana and Hong Kong .  This tree planting helped with the ecological development as well as provide homes for native wildlife and food for the people.  “We cannot trust that the adults alone will save our future. We have to take our future in our own hands.”

            Felix Finkbeiner