The street children of the Accra slums.

250 Street Children.

13 Volunteers.

1 epic day.

Amongst many of Eric’s programs throughout the greater Accra region, a hallmark tradition for the past 5 years has been his street child feeding programme. The inner slums of Accra are a windy, chaotic, environment that lack the most basic of human provisions (shelter, water, medicines, let alone water are a constant struggle to find) yet it still retains an essence of a thriving community. As most children lack one or both parents and are left to fend for themselves as soon as they can walk, a natural brotherhood and sisterhood is created to protect one another. 100s of children wander these streets as written in the prior entries and Eric ensures that these children that live on the street get at least one hot, nutritious meal per week.

After completing his sermons at church, Eric drives out to the slum every Sunday afternoon to give the children lessons about taking care of one another, play games, and provide a warm meal for all the children of the slum.

For this particular day, on a chance meeting with young and multi-talented student named Alyson Ross (pictured on the right), GO was able to recruit a few volunteers from the University of Ghana. Having exchanged contact numbers on a bus ride, Alyson did a remarkable job of recruiting 10 young women from the USA who are doing an exchange program at the University of Ghana. I met them out right before entering the slum, giving a brief explanation of the day’s purpose, not fully knowing what to expect myself.

Turning the corner into the slum’s main open area with the group of volunteers, the scene that awaited us will never be forgotten.

As we walked upon the group, swarms of joyful cries and little bodies fell upon the group. Despite the difficulties and poverty bearing down on these innocent children, there came a sheer passion of joy from them that will forever stay frozen in our minds and hearts.

We were engulfed in a joyful tidal wave of children.

They jumped.

They laughed.

They screamed.

They were simply ecstatic.

I personally recollect little about this moment, as my mind entered into a child like state where time plays only a supporting role, offering only priceless fragments of memory that are etched into our minds. All I remember are the smiles and cries and in what could have been 1 minute or 10, we began to break the children out into more manageable groups for the day’s activities. With this number of excited children, it proved to be the first of many formidable tasks that lay ahead.

Each volunteer was assigned to a group to play games, tell stories, or simply interact with the children. Coming from their environment of daily survival, obedience to rules, shall we say, does not come naturally. But we gave our best effort of playing various on the spot games such as improvised jump rope/limbo/flip-over-the- rope, 30 on 30 football, a 60 child version of the hokey pokey, and the ever entertaining yet simple game of spinning in a circle. As the food began to be served, the volunteers ensured each received their fair portion and that every child received some water.

The volunteers from the University of Ghana were simply wonderful. With natural abilities to play with the children in a challenging environment, we cannot thank them enough for their support that day. If you have never tried taking care of 30 rowdy children, let alone trying to form a queue to give water to the desperately thirsty, saying it takes a lot out of you does not even begin to describe it correctly.

But what it puts back into your heart is limitless.

Lauren hands out fresh water to the thirsty children.