Edinam T.’s Article: A Happy British-Ghanaian Student Exchange

Article #19 in the YCC Kids Club Ghana Student Life Stories Project
The Happiest Moments in My Life
By Edinam Titiati, Age 14

I would like to share with you the happiest moments in my life. Everything started when I became part of Youth Creating Change of Ghana.

One day, a YCC staff member came to my school to tell us about the YCC Pilot Reading Club. If our school joined the club, YCC would allow twenty students to pick books out of the YCC library each week. After reading and discussing the books, we would exchange our books for new ones and continue the learning process. Any lost book would need to be replaced. Happily, my school joined!

It was really exciting when I first entered the YCC library because there are hardly any libraries in Ghana’s Volta Region. I was also quite scared! But as the months passed, I learned so many things from the Reading Club. I learned a whole lot of new words, not to mention wonderful stories.

I was pleased to learn there would be a Grand Quiz of Reading between members of the pilot Reading Clubs. It was a heated competition that lasted many months! In the twenty initial rounds, my school competed against four other youth groups, and the questions about the books we had read were really tough! In the final round (pictured to the lower right), the YCC Kids Club group emerged as the winner of the competition.

All students and schools that successfully took part in the Pilot Reading Club programme were given amazing prizes, including backpacks, bicycles, and even a computer! We all vowed to read and study even better for next year to win top prize. But even if we don’t win, it is really fun being a member of the YCC Reading Club!

In addition to the Reading Club, I was luckily chosen to become part of the Map Commonwealth Youth Exchange Programme, because I am very smart and confident. This programme is an educational youth exchange between Ghana and the United Kingdom!

When thirteen British youths arrived to visit us here in Ghana for three weeks last August through this exchange, we learned so much from each other! I also learned much about my own country thanks to the touristic sights we were able to visit in Ghana with our British guests: Kakum National Park, Cape Coast Castle, and more.

Part of the Cross-Cultural learning was painful at first. For example, we were given some of the British students’ favourite foods to eat, but we couldn’t always eat them because we thought they were tasteless. Then, when our new British friends were given our Ghanaian foods, some of them complained, and others even vomited!

There was also a serious argument about religion in our rooms one evening. Some of our British counterparts had different views about God and the Bible than we did, and we debated late into the night. By the morning time, we really didn’t come to an agreement, but we were all full of new ideas and new energy.

I hope we will continue the conversation when our group of Ghanaian students reunites with our British friends in the United Kingdom this August!

You might be surprised to learn that the best moments of my life contained portions of fear, vomiting, and heated debates, but you know that the excellent minutes far outweighed the difficult. I cannot express to you how much these YCC programmes have helped me to learn and grow… and how very, very fun they have been!

Youths and adults of the world, let us recognize and support the work of worthwhile nonprofit organizations like YCC!

Lillie’s Note: Please leave Edinam T. a comment on his enthusiastic article, making sure to state your geographical location!