Mandela Washington Fellow collaborates with 4 UDS Students to maintain feeder roads

• Posted on December 16, 2021December 16, 2021
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Mr. Kelvin Williams Asuma, a Mandela Washington Fellow of the 2018 Cohorts and an officer with the Bui Power Authority along with four students of the University for Development Studies (UDS) on their Third Trimester Field Practical Program (TTFPP) in a remote farming community of Akisimasu in the Techiman South District Assembly met when he was coming from the said village to inspect a project and his car got stuck on the road due to a torrential downpour. 

The TTFPP is a designed module of UDS that combines students from all faculties and scatter them across some rural settlements of the middle and northern belt of Ghana in groups of ten. The essence is to enable students to see community developmental challenges and prospects from different angles, brainstorming sustainable solutions and thereby helping them to develop favorable attitude towards working in rural communities.

The four gentlemen: Ghansah John offering BEd. Early Childhood, Duagib Chamba Daniel offering BSc. Nursing, Alex Suapaak Kombat offering Doctor of Medical Laboratory Sciences, and James Mwinwel offering BEd. Early Childhood were visiting a nearby factory, without any hesitation got into the muddy gullies despite neatly adorned, to help Mr. Williams salvage his stuck car from the mud. Impressed with their kindness and helpful gesture, Mr. Williams asked who they were and they revealed they are students from UDS on TTFPP.  He shared his MWF complimentary cards with them and a meeting arranged to discuss some few issues the community faces and a mentorship session for their personal growth. The next day, Mr. Williams met with the four at his project site and a mentorship session was carried out where various issues including information about the Mandela Washington Fellowship and Young African Leadership Initiative, education and scholarship prospects for masters degree overseas, procedures and requirements for various countries was revealed to the group. 

From left to right: Alex, James, John and Daniel, UDS TTFPP students.

Further, Mr. Williams and his teammate Mr. Alexander Sarpong who is the project manager together with the UDS Team discussed the bad state of the road especially during rains when it becomes difficult to be used by motorists and how to tackle it through self-help solutions. Trucks carrying timber and foodstuff to the markets of Techiman got stuck for days before being freed where most perishable foodstuff in the trucks go bad. During these times, no car goes or comes until the stuck trucks are freed. In a meeting with the students, the chairman of the Unit Committee and the chief and elders of the Akisimasu community, the group discussed possible solutions to the bad state of the road where it was agreed that simply filling of sacks with sand, gravel and boulders can help solve the situation. This would be done by placing the filled sacks of sand along with the boulders and gravels in the gullies that were cut by the rill erosion. This will curb the situation and make the roads motorable once again. This can also control further erosion of the road and prevent it from being cut off from markets and people commuting to and fro.

Filling of sacks with ordinary sand for road maintenance to help prevent further erosion

Through participatory and inclusive processes of tackling the issues, Mr. Williams volunteered to procure the sacks, the UDS TTFPP Team was tasked to lead the filling of the sacks with sand along with some youth of the community and the Unit Committee leader, the chief and elders of the community took over organizing a communal labor session and transportation to carry the filled sacks to the various location where the road is in deplorable state. 

A tractor that operates in the village was contracted to transport the filled sacks and also, all taxis and trucks using the road were involved in the maintenance work by carrying filled sacks of sand and filling gullies on the road as they traveled along. The exercise was successful and the road became usable uninterruptedly again.

The transportation resource for the project, an old tractor

Transporting the filled sacks with sand to the deplorable roads for maintenance.

The road serves three farming communities of Akisimasu, Aworopataa and Anitiafe. Items mainly cart on the road include foodstuff to the nearby bigger markets of Hansua and Techiman, merchants who transport timber to the big cities, poultry products, soap from a soap making factory along the road and villagers who commute in taxis.

Road maintenance work using filled sacks of sand, gravel and boulders by the UDS TTFPP and communal labor team.

The Unit Committee Chairman Mr. Kwame Isaac Ameyaw, the chief of Akisimasu Nana Kwabena Owusu Ameyaw IV and elders were very elated to be part of the processes leading to the solution for the maintenance of their road. They were happy to own the problem and solved it by their own communal efforts yielding a quick impact to their benefits than relying on external sources to do so for them. They expressed profound indebtedness to Mr. Williams and the Team of four from UDS’ TTFPP for leading the way and showing that solution can always come from within than always relying on government.

The students also expressed their heartfelt gratitude to Mr. Williams for the mentorship session and opening them to the huge prospects ahead of them and encouraging them to pay attention to their studies and pick up practical solutions in solving day-to-day community problems. They also thanked him for initiating and spearheading the road repairs move. 

Story by Linda Okyere Yeboah and Sandrine Adelaide Amponsah