Baobab: Stills and Photos #3 - Navrongo
Baobab: Stills and Photos #3 - Navrongo |
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All photos © 1997, Baobab Productions Inc. All photos by David Mowbray |
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Young Ghanaian boys play in
the late afternoon sun outside the chief's compound in the village of Kayoro.
The chief's house is usually the most ornate in the community.
In this region of Ghana, malnutrition and diseases such as malaria are very common. Work done by the Navrongo Health Research Centre is helping reduce the incidence of several major diseases, giving many young people a future that would otherwise have been denied them. |
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A couple and one of their daughters listens intently to a presentation on family planning given by a community volunteer worker in a compound near Paga in northern Ghana. The community volunteers, called "YZ's" (an abbreviation taken from the expression for "volunteer" in the local language), make a unique contribution to health monitoring and care in the region. Their work is part of an experimental study being conducted by the Navrongo Health Research Centre. |
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An elderly patriarch in his compound near the village of Doba in northern Ghana. Community based nurses, who traverse the dirt tracks by motor cycle, ensure that even the most isolated have contact with the health care system. |
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Doctors and nurses from the Navrongo Health Research Centre bring health care directly to villages that do not have any formal medical facilities. In this case it's an immunization clinic being conducted outdoors under the shade of a Baobab tree in the village of Doba. Both children and their mothers are immunized at these clinics. |
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This is part of a celebration called a "Durbar." Men and women dance
and sing to drummers and flute players for hours into the evening. Then,
they hold a community meeting, under a tree, with the chief of the village
presiding. Everyone can speak his or her mind with no fear of reprisal.
It is a true expression of community democracy.
The Navrongo Health Research centre uses Durbars like this to ask the community what can be done to improve the provision of health services. The formula has proven quite successful. |
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