First visit to Bo in nearly 3 years: Health, Schools, Youth and the Council
This was the first visit to Bo for more that two-and-a-half years; between 19th and 28th October 2022 Helena White, her son William, Zoe Milburn and Richard Hall finally made the first visit since the outbreak of the Covid pandemic. See Richard’s full report here. and press release here
Helena was there to build on her Midwifery links and introduced Zoe, a fellow Midwife, to life in Bo. They also conducted training sessions at the OWL Centre and at Yemoh Town Clinic. An important objective of the visit was to explore the potential for expanding the health link beyond Midwifery. We are hopeful of making progress with what is a very complicated project to put together, but one which has huge potential benefits for Bo and here. Another friend of OWL in Bo is now Dean of Community Health at Njala University, Rashid Ansumana. There may be potential for joint working, perhaps linking to the Health project.
The purpose of the visit for Richard was to meet with Bo OWL members again in person. To understand their current issues and to re-connect with as many other organisations as time allowed. With the Teacher visit programme on temporary hold, Richard was able to stand in for a Teachers’ Group meeting and visit 8 schools. The tree-planting project had gone ahead and schools were keen to show what had been done.
During the visit Richard had a meeting with the Chief Administrator and the Deputy Mayor of Bo City. The long-established links between Bo City Council and OWL and with Leamington Spa Town Council were fully recognised and Richard returned with an official letter from the city council commemorating the 40 years of friendship between the LSTC and BCC. They also thanked LSTC for the donation towards tree-planting in their area.
There have been communications with a group of younger people in Bo for some time looking at the prospect of re-establishing a ‘youth group’. There is real potential for an exciting IT training project, led by the group.
In conclusion it was a busy time, generating lots of ideas and potential to follow up, and was very enjoyable, but in making a visit we must recognise the burden that it places on our friends in Bo OWL. So thank you to those who facilitated the visit and to all our friends in Bo OWL. We look forward to welcoming some of them over here in the not too distant future.
