TPRF Real Stories

With the long wait over for the arrival of key equipment, the construction team in Ghana began tackling the final tasks necessary to open the Food for People facility in Otinibi.  Here is Kafui Esi Adjei’s report on the day-to-day events leading up to the historic inauguration of the third location for TPRF’s unique and highly successful feeding and education program.

We have had several guests visiting the facility. The Chief of Otinibi, Nii Adjei Kweidzamansah III, and his entourage came to the facility to have a taste of the favorite and delicious local dish “Ga  Kenkey” served with fried fish and hot pepper sauce.

Ga Kenkey is a staple food in Ghana made from corn/maize dough kneaded into a ball and then wrapped in a corn husk.  After boiling Ga Kenkey for about an hour and a half, it is usually eaten with meat, chicken, fish and soup dishes accompanied by a hot pepper sauce seasoning.

The District Chief Executive, the political head of the district, Honourable John Kwao Sackey, also came with the Assemblyman for the area, Honourable Adams Thoro. The head of the nutrition department of the University of Ghana was also there with her team on three different occasions as part of a base line nutrition study underway at Food for People Ghana.

The baseline study is a research project designed to gather statistics on the school children’s health status, school attendance, performance in class, and other related statistics. These benchmarks will be gathered before the feeding program begins. The same statistics will be gathered periodically after FFP Ghana opens.  By comparing the original benchmarks to the statistics gathered over time, the baseline study will reveal the impact the feeding program is having on the children in the community.

On May First it will be exactly a year since sod was cut for the beginning of the project. It is really amazing how things can move very fast. Finally, the long-awaited coolers arrived in a van after the close of work on Tuesday, April 3^rd. By the end the next day, the coolers had been fully assembled. After installing the refrigerator piping system, the construction team tested the coolers for over a week and the system checked out fine.

Everybody is happy for the arrival of the coolers, so we are ready for the inauguration of the facility. We anticipate feeding 450 people including invited guests at the inauguration.  We expect the opening ceremonies will happen between May 15 and May 22. From then onwards, we will be feeding about 500 people every day.

Photos by Francis Ahore

The children and elders in and around the village of Otinibi can hardly wait for the inaugural ceremonies marking the opening of the third Food for People in Ghana.  Construction teams are working long hours to complete the final touches.  Just as the end is in sight, a slight plot complication has heightened the drama of this compelling story.

A few last minute details will make the wait last a bit longer.  Well, maybe the refrigerators are more than a “detail.”  A delayed shipment of equipment for the “cold room” has set back the opening date to the week of March 5-10.

The Ghana educational authorities are very interested in seeing the freezer, cold room, preparation area, and cooking system in operation.  The authorities are excited about the possibility of adopting the Otinibi facility plan for other Ghana school feeding programs.  Therefore, Bobby Hendry, who oversees health, hygiene, and quality control for the feeding program, wants to be sure that everything is running smoothly when the facility opens.

Ghana FFP Construction Nears Completion

Approximately 550 guests, ministers and chiefs will attend the opening event.

Approximately 500 children will eat their first, nutritious lunch on opening day.

The stage and assigned seating will be located opposite the facility in an open area on the far side of the Otinibi Road.

A separate lavatory building is nearly complete with individual facilities for boys and girls. The interior finishing of the main dining area continues to progress rapidly, as evidenced by the accompanying photos.  The construction team is testing landline and Internet connection devices as we write this update.

At long last, the facility is on the brink of opening.  I think I may be more impatient for the inaugural event than the Otinibi villagers–but then I remind myself, it’s only a matter of days.  Only a few small hills remain to be climbed instead of the mountains that stretched before the  undaunted volunteers more than a year ago.

In Bobby Hendry’s own words, “The facility is really looking good.”

Exterior Views of Ghana FFP

Here is guest-blogger Giuseppe Buffa’s follow up report on the Week of Peace celebration in Mazara del Vallo, Sicily. His first report, “Witnessing Wonders,” appears below this one.

Thirty languages are spoken in Mazara. Thirty distinct cultural communities live within the city due to its geographical location and its history of integration, which Mayor Cristaldi explained goes back to the eighth century.  The Arabic community is the largest of these cultures. We wanted to make sure that representatives of the Arabic community attended the Week of Peace. So late on a sunny morning during the Week of Peace, we decided to walk through the Kasbah, which is in the Arab quarter of the city. Kasbah means “hearth” or “center of a city” in Arabic.

A friend who speaks Arabic and I took a supply of leaflets to use as invitations to the most special event of the Week of Peace: Prem Rawat’s public address on the 27th of May. First, we went into an Arabic food shop, where five people listened to our invitation to the peace conference. Then we moved on along the narrow lanes of the Kasbah. They are narrow to keep the hot sun away and allow fresh air to breeze through to cool your face.

Soon we chanced upon another group of young people. They were amazed that we came to invite them to a conference on peace, or salaam, as it is called in Arabic. Lastly, we went to a small restaurant where we invited the owner and his whole family to come. Again, they were very happy and appreciated so much our enthusiasm and joy to have them with us at the Friday conference.

The day after the conference on peace, we went on a tour of the Kasbah with Mayor Cristaldi, and to our surprise, we saw three of our leaflets that somebody had put up on a shop door as a means of advertising the conference. More than thirty Arabs came to hear Prem Rawat speak on Friday.

A Friendly Invitation to the Peace Conference

In 2009, TPRF Founder Prem Rawat visited the small town of Mazara del Vallo in Scicily. He came to speak to the town government, citizens, and students on the subject of peace.  His address and subsequent question and answer session with students of Mazara has inspired a “Week of Peace and Solidarity” celebration (May 23-28) to promote understanding, tolerance, and a culture of peace around the world. The Mazara Town Council made Prem Rawat an Honorary Citizen of the city. Here is a preliminary report on the first annual Week of Peace and Solidarity from on-the-scene guest blogger Giuseppe Buffa.

Poster Announcing the Week of Peace

Preparations for the Week of Peace and Solidarity are underway in Mazara del Vallo, Sicily. Mazara is an incredibly peaceful city overlooking the Canal of Sicily, the channel in the Mediterranean Sea between Sicily and Africa. It is a short distance from the ongoing scenes of war and revolution that have been going on for several months in North Africa. From time to time in the early morning, you can hear the sound of fighter jets on their way to Libya, and you wonder how war can rage so near such a beautiful little city that is so peaceful and well integrated with Arab culture.

Here in Mazara you can comfortably be a Christian, Jew, or Muslim. These three cultures have lived peacefully together here for almost eight centuries.  When you look at the Mediterranean, you cannot help feeling the peace coming from it. A friend of mine commented to me yesterday, “Look Giuseppe, even the sea seems to be in synch with Mazara’s Week of Peace!”

On Monday, we were all amazed by the words of Mazara Mayor Cristaldi at the press conference for the official opening of the Week of Peace. He said words put in motion bring changes and the recent revolution in Tunisia may have actually begun long ago.

He commented that the words “tolerance” and “integration” imply one group or person is “higher and has to tolerate somebody else who is lower.”  On the contrary, the Mayor pointed out, that the more powerful group has a social responsibility to integrate with the less powerful group. He thinks it is better to have a dialogue between different but equal multicultural and multiethnic groups.

The Mayor expressed the hope that by the end of the Week of Peace in Mazara, there would be a solution for the problem of divisions in the Arab world, including the conflict between thePalestinians and the State of Israel. He suggested that what will happen here may be small but could change the destiny of humanity.

“Peace is a universal value,” he said. “We need to find happiness, and to find happiness we need to be alive.”

I felt so happy to hear these words! The Week of Peace is opening with such a deep feeling of clarity! I will continue to write about a few more wonders from Mazara as the week unfolds.

As the paperwork and planning for the new Food for People (FFP) facility in Africa is wrapping up, I have been flashing back on my personal experiences with the current FFP  facilities operating in India and Nepal. I’d like to share my reflections with you on this blog. (I’ll add more posts as I can.)

I was told that the people who live in this pocket of northeastern India where the FFP facility was built have had a long history of struggles. They are descendants of the very first people to inhabit India, and, much like the indigenous peoples of Australia and the US, they ended up living in areas no one else wanted.

Food for People program, Bantoli, India

The region around Bantoli is rocky, and the climate is hot and dry, with harsh winds often whipping up dust during the summer months. Yet, the historically unfair treatment of these proud people does not seem to have dampened their spirits.  Although I could not understand their language, I could see that they were quick to laugh and had a sparkle in their eyes.

When I stood up to speak, at the opening ceremony for the first Food for People facility, I saw the children looking at me with great delight, trying to stifle giggles. I learned later that they had never seen a light complexioned western woman, let alone a woman who stands six feet tall. I might as well have been from another planet!

I spoke a little about the work of TPRF, stopping every few sentences so the young Hindi translator could do her job. We shared one stand-up type microphone, and although there was a height difference between us that was more than a foot, I think we did Ok.

I then introduced Prem Rawat, the Founder of TPRF, whose vision to help people in a way that respects their culture and treats them with dignity led to this model food program. Mr. Rawat told us not to worry about teaching them a new trade or giving them things to sell. He encouraged us simply to provide delicious meals that they would enjoy eating, teach them about simple hygiene, and offer educational television programs. He was sure they would then find their way to a more promising future. He spoke eloquently and passionately about the responsibility we all have to help:

“It is incumbent upon us to shape the future in the best way that we can. The children are the ones that need to be taken care of so that there will be a tomorrow. It is incumbent upon all of us to shape their future into something that is friendly, that will recognize the need of human beings across the world—not countries, but human beings. That’s what Prem Rawat Foundation is interested in.”

Prem Rawat speaks at Food for People inauguration event in Bantoli, India

After the talks, we were led to where the commemorative plaque was ready for unveiling. Mrs. Rawat joined her husband in the ceremony, and then everyone was invited into the dining hall to have the first meal. There was great excitement as children and adults began to climb the stone steps that led to the veranda and the hand washing stations.

To be continued.