GAIO, a true Difference Maker Organization!

Interview with Jacqueline Prairie

1)     What does GAIO do?

GAIO is a one girl show, and I am building a modern library in a very rural area of eastern Ghana. This is a regular modern library here but is totally unlike anything they have there. The purpose of this is to make the library and learning fun. They don’t have internet access and the children are not encouraged to attend school or learn. We are hoping to create a cultural center and a living library in one. Now, through our partnership with UCSD’s Jacob School of Engineering, the building will use the latest in sustainability / renewable resources.  They are assigning teams of Engineering students to design the green aspect.  Therefore the library will also be a starship showcasing green technology. Helping locals learn more about green technology. The project will be the first of its kind in the region. The library could potentially impact 20,000 children.

 

 

2)     When did you first begin your work with GAIO/in Ghana?

The long version is that I went to Africa when I was 20 and saw the differences between our opportunities in North America versus what opportunities they have available to them. I have been haunted with a sense of inability to help but really feeling the need to do something. As my career progressed I started working on big projects and the light bulb struck that education and access to information really could do something powerful there. I started doing research in 2008 to see what I could do to bring education to those who didn’t have access. I found that in many countries the government provides schools and that wasn’t really what I was looking to do. In 2008, I met a man who said he would grant me a piece of land, which was in Ghana and I met with the Regional Chief of the area who had been hoping to start a library for the past 10 years. So now we have the land, architectural plans and the walls are up!

 

3)     What has been your most rewarding experience in your work in Ghana?

The smiles on the children’s faces is absolutely the most rewarding. While I am not working with them directly, I am working with architects, chief of Foreign Affairs etc. but while I am walking around children recognize that I am there to help them and greet me with smiles and such kindness. It’s magic. Whenever I am working late and feeling frustrated all I have to remember is the childrens’ faces and I get right back in.

4)     What future projects/dreams do you have on the horizon for GAIO?

As far as the library/cultural center I would love to have seminars to introduce micro-financing, arts, and a variety of live sessions. I have also adopted a school in the region, called Great Vision, the woman running it has 14 small classes teaching several hundred children including 25 orphans, she works from 4 in the morning harvesting food to sell at the market to subsidize the school costs and then goes to the school at 8am. If she did not build this subsidized school, all these children would not obtain education. I am working on a separate project to send money and computers to that school. A child at this particular school could be the next president but not if they didn’t have that school, not if they didn’t have that opportunity.  Please follow the progress on www.gaioworld.org.

 

5)     Have you learned from the people you are reaching out to?

The first thing that comes to mind is that they work as a community not as individuals not at all like North Americans. Where here it is me, me, me, there it is working together. I was walking with a man to a meeting and we were running late so I started rushing. We saw a group of men struggling to move a shed and instead of worrying about the meeting he handed me his brief case and helped them move the shed. The community comes first, everything is in collaboration. I am trying to teach that along the way, that we are a part of a whole not just individuals walking around. Everything is slower in Africa, which can be frustrating to North Americans, but conversely the relationships are so thick and so deep, it’s amazing. There is a term that I used to laugh about but am now learning to really appreciate “exercise patience”. How respectful the Ghanaians are too, it’s never appropriate to scold people in public there because they all have so much respect for one another. The two qualities I find most prevalent in Ghanaians are respectful and appreciative, which you can imagine makes working there incredibly enjoyable.

 

6)     What were your dreams growing up?

I am an adventurous type, so none of my friends have been surprised by my current projects. One of my dreams was actually to be working in Africa but as a photographer of wild animals. My dreams have always been wild and free but predominantly I have always dreamt there would be more fairness in the world. So what I am currently doing is a collaboration of what I like to do and what I want to do. My African friends are convinced I was African in a previous life.

 

7)     Who do you admire most?

The first person to really inspire me was a woman who owned a riding stable in Montreal. She was just very cool, she was a widow with four young children and in the 1930s she opened a riding school, which in that time women just didn’t do. She was just so strong and did everything the right way.

 

8)     When and how did you learn about Difference Makers?

My next door neighbor had a teenage daughter whose friend was a Youth Ambassador for Difference Makers. He heard about what I was doing and said “Hey you’re a Difference Maker!” and he connected me with this great organization.

Reported by Cassie Boothe, Outreach Specialist

11 June 2010 ·