Mission Statement
The organization, Voluntary Aid and Cultural Integration, is based in the Volta Region in the southern part of Ghana, founded in the year 2000. Our team works with local participants for the development of their communities. We operate in five communities in two districts (Akatsi and Ketu south and Ketu north Districts) of the Volta region. We encourage voluntary work and cultural understanding between people of different countries. Cultural integration and mutual exchange of ideas of people with diverse backgrounds and understanding is a necessary ingredient for growth and development. One of our organization's major goals is to promote the engagement of Ghanaian youth in the development of their own country. For example, VACI Counselling Project is a unit that engages volunteers in providing career and educational counselling for youth in the Volta Region. Through projects staffed by motivated volunteers, VACI also hopes to educate Ghanaian society on high-impact issues such as drug abuse, health and sexual education, etc.
Description
Areas of Operation
The organization's currently proposed and preferred projects fall within the following key areas:
- Educational campaigns and educational opportunities
- HIV/AIDS awareness
- Fighting Drug Abuse
- Poverty reduction through building sustainable practices for food security
- Serving as an advocate to stop Child Trafficking
The organization hopes to work towards building schools to accommodate children in deprived areas of Southern Volta. It is part of our vision that such schools become modern schools for the advancement of community based development, and a complement to the government of Ghana's effort at making education a fundamental subject of grassroots development. VACI also works to sponsor the education of underprivileged children in the Volta region while helping them to acquire employable skills. As a component part of our project on rural education, computer study centres will be established soon by the organization in one of these communities to serve the information technology needs of the children living in these communities. VACI is concerned with parent education as a means of addressing youth illiteracy. VACI has a number of developmental projects to be established that need assistance from motivated foreign volunteers. These projects are a part of the organization's goals of community-based development in the Volta region and are the building-blocks of a larger societal vision of rural development in Ghana. Problem DefinitionIn most deprived communities of the Volta region of Ghana, many people live and work without being able to improve their standard of living. Most of the people living in these communities are peasant farmers and petty traders with minimal to no education. They therefore cannot secure any significantly well paying jobs. In this same region most parents do not see the need to send their children to school. This state of affairs has been partly due to financial problems and also due to the fact that the knowledge gap makes education seem unattractive to a vast majority of these rural dwellers. However, sickness and disease are also main hindrances of the residence in these communities.
VisionThe vision of Voluntary Aid and Cultural Integration is to become a leading partner in promoting socio-economic development in the lives of the vulnerable and also building global cultural integration among all races for a peaceful world.
MissionOur mission is to undertake community development activities through volunteerism and also to create opportunities for cross-culture development.
Aims/Goals- To assist deprived communities through capacity building
- To create awareness and experience sharing between Ghanaians and people from abroad (Intercultural Exchange)
- To promote the act of volunteerism for all
- To sponsor the education of underprivileged children in the Volta region while concurrently helping them to acquire employable skills
- To educate the youth on the concept of "peace for development" to encourage cooperation between and among people of Ghana's numerous ethnic groups
- To educate the society and youth about the dangers of the HIV/AIDS and its negative effects on development
- To fight drug abuse among the youth in the region
- To promote general health education
StrategiesTo initiate and support our proposed projects, VACI Ghana will work jointly with communities based on their requests and needs. VACI evaluates and acts on community requests to the organization. We have completed and will continue to carry out periodic surveys and investigations to determine areas of need in the Volta region. Our aims and goals, reflected in the current proposed projects, are a response to these self-determined community needs. VACI prepares, assigns, and supports participants in engaging with any of these various projects as well as remaining open to new proposals or research topics. In order to effectively address VACI diverse community development goals, we have developed numerous partnerships with local and international NGOs that share our objectives. In this way, we will build upon the development work of others, compliment the fine work already accomplished in the Volta region. We believe that cooperation and mutual support among community development organizations is just as important as among Ghanaians and people of diverse cultures.
