Charity
Friends of Tafo is a UK registered charity that aims to empower as well as help the people of Kwahu-Tafo, an impoverished rural town in Ghana, via responsible giving that generates a capacity for self-development in education, job-creation, and quality of life and infrastructure.
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Friends Of Tafo Go Ghana Cycle Challenge's
Thanks for visiting my page. OK here's the deal - The challenge is for me to cycle 60 miles a day for six days - about 350 miles - from Ghana's coast up to the mountain village of Tafo this October. I'm raising money to get basic clean sanitation for the village - clean fresh drinking water for all. It's something we all take for granted, and is, in my view, a basic human right. If doing this challenge helps these people to achieve that, then it's a good enough reason to do it as far as I'm concerned. I've always wanted to go to Ghana, and this way I get to see the country from the saddle of a mountain bike, and contribute something to the country too rather than just being a tourist clicking on my camera. To do this I have paid a registration fee of £300, and guaranteed the charity Friends OF Tafo a total of £3000. If I don't raise this in sponsorship, I will pay it out of my own pocket. Seems fair enough !
The charity was established by TV producer Humphrey Barclay when his friend Gyearbour Asante, who played African student Matthew in "Desmond's" died. Humphrey was made a chief in Gyearbour's village - Tafo - and has spent the years since raising money for the people there, concentrating initially on education and building a school. Here is an article about Humphrey's involvement from Time Magazine :
Ghana's tribes are reinventing the notion of aid- through the help of foreign chiefs.
IN THE FORESTS OF CENTRAL and southern Ghana, the high priest to King Osei Tutu 1 called down a golden stool from the heavens and gave Tutu the divine foundation on which he would build the mighty Ashanti Empire. The Ashanti combined strength in war-conquering lands from what is now Ivory Coast in the west to Togo in the east and defeating British colonizers several times - with skill in art, particularly sculpture and cloth. But not everyone appreciated their authoritarian ways, and in the early 1700S a group of chiefs broke away and moved northeast. Traveling through a narrow pass in a line of towering granite cliffs west of the Volta River, they came to a plateau whose woods offered good hunting. The village became known as Xwahu-Tafo; its name combines the words in Twi, Ghana's main language, for "go and die"-the fate of many an Ashanti warrior who tried to scale the cliffs under a hail of rocks from the separatists above - and "wet ladle," or plentiful food.
Ten years ago, my uncle, Humphrey Barclay, became a chief of Kwahu-Tafo. Humph has noble lineage of his own: a clan cloth - the Barclay tartan - and ancestors stretching back through the founders of Barclays Bank and the first Quakers to the time of William the Conqueror. But it was as a 60-year-old London TV producer that, in 2000, he traveled to Kwahu-Tafo for the funeral of Gyearbuor Asante, a Ghanaian friend and an actor in one of his shows. Something about Humph's manner impressed the chief, Nana Ameyaw Gyensiama Ill, a.k.a. Nana Tafohene, and after the burial he asked my uncle to mediate between a woman and her mother who had not spoken for five years. Humph succeeded - 'I worked in TV," he says, "so I'm fluent in platitude."
Almost before Humph knew it, the chief had adopted him as a son, renamed him Nana Kwadwo Ameyaw Gyearbuor Yiadom (Chief Monday-Born Hero Invincible Redeemer) and anointed him Kwahu-Tafo's head of development. A two-day enstoolment, or coronation, followed a year later; by then Humph had started work on a house in Kwahu-Tafo and formed a charity, Friends of Tafo, to raise money to fix up the village schools, dredge its rivers, run health campaigns and build a library and an Internet cafe. A signal success has been the senior high school, once run-down with just four pupils, now a complex of buildings, including a science block, with 500 students.
It's a great story - how my uncle became a chief of a tribe in a faraway land. But it is not unique. Raphael Aidoo, who is writing a thesis on Ghana's foreign chiefs for his anthropology Ph.D. at King's College, University of London, has found at least 30: British, American, Japanese, Canadian, Australian, Norwegian and Jamaican.
While my uncle is no exception, Ghana certainly is. Prosperous, democratic and peaceful, it is an island of stability in the sea of insecurity and poverty that is West Africa. Moreover, Ghana's chiefs display a pragmatic adaptability rare among monarchs. It's something they likely owe to the Ashanti, who were never truly conquered by the British but who, curious about what gifts their prospective masters might bring, consented to a nominal colonialism. The same sensible expediency endures today. "It's not about being black or white," says chief Nana Tafohene. "It's about the best way to progress."
It's also about solving some key problems with aid. Donors tend to think of foreign aid as charity, and unequivocally a good thing. Often overlooked is that, for the recipient, charity can be disabling.
Skills are lost, duties forgotten and dependency fostered. That is not the case with Ghana's foreign chiefs. "I am in charge," declares Nana Ta- fohene in his tin-roofed palace in the center ofKwahu-Tafo. "Fixing the schools was not your uncle's idea. He does the tasks the community asks him to." Such chieftaincy also provides a neat answer to another perennial aid flaw: What happens when the aid workers leave? "It's a lifetime job," says John Lawler from Newcastle in northern England, enstooled by the village of Shia in eastern Ghana when he taught there in the 1990S. So convinced is former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a Ghanaian, by the lessons of Ghana's tribes, he proposes a council of foreign chiefs to spread the word.
For Nana Tafohene, color blindness is less a matter of principle than commonsense. It is by looking past black and white, he says, that he can see a rosy future. "I drew your uncle near to me and made him part of my family. He did not change my people - I changed him. And by bringing him in, I could monitor him, see how we were benefiting from him." Nana Tafohene grins: "So far, so good."
Recent donors
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Anonymous £50.00 (+ £12.50 giftaid) 08.11.11 Very well done! You did a great thing. Always feel proud of that. x |
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The other Paul £20.00 20.10.11 Oh, You're the best, Ringo!!! |
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Anonymous £20.00 20.10.11 Good job Ralph! |
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Maria & Ian £25.00 (+ £6.25 giftaid) 19.10.11 Well done Ralph and the team - a great challenge successfully achieved! x |
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Wrigley x £20.00 (+ £5.00 giftaid) 16.10.11 Well done, fella |
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p sullivan £20.00 (+ £5.00 giftaid) 14.10.11 you continue to amaze and evolve, i wish you luck for your walk through life and give you strength for you ride. power to the people.x |
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Kerry £25.00 (+ £6.25 giftaid) 14.10.11 Well done |
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Herry £30.00 (+ £7.50 giftaid) 11.10.11 Well cycled mate! And for such a great reason. |
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Martin S £50.00 (+ £12.50 giftaid) 10.10.11 Well done Ralph. Proud to know you |
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Nellie Ashford-Russell £50.00 (+ £12.50 giftaid) 03.10.11 Dear Lou. WELL DONE YOU! I hope it all goes really well and you have a great adventure and toned legs! LOL for Brian and Nellie x |
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Dicky and Val Dunn £50.00 (+ £12.50 giftaid) 03.10.11 Best of luck, Mel and Lou. Sorry this is a bit late. |
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Sam Bond £5.00 30.09.11 Hey hun, Lokko showed me this on her twitter... well done you. Sorry I'm not donating much but every bit helps as they say x |
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nic and lily lokko £10.00 (+ £2.50 giftaid) 29.09.11 Good Luck Ralph! x x x |
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Simon Lester £20.00 (+ £5.00 giftaid) 27.09.11 good luck. dont forget the E45 cream |
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James Moran £20.00 (+ £5.00 giftaid) 27.09.11 |
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PaulJCG £30.00 (+ £7.50 giftaid) 21.09.11 bring harmony :) |
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Bayouchka bayouka £10.00 12.09.11 Hope that this little contribution will help you in this human adventure. |
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David Simmons £20.00 (+ £5.00 giftaid) 12.09.11 |
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THE RIGHTS HOUSE LIMITED £400.00 (+ £100.00 giftaid) 22.08.11 |
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Anonymous £20.00 (+ £5.00 giftaid) 17.08.11 Good luck Ralphy x |
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Martina x £20.00 (+ £5.00 giftaid) 01.08.11 Hope training is coming on a pace, honey and you have the best time. |
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The Wilkinsons £100.00 (+ £25.00 giftaid) 19.07.11 Good Luck Lou and Mel. We will be thinking of you all the way! Loads of love from all the Wilkinsons |
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Lizzie Ball £20.00 (+ £5.00 giftaid) 17.07.11 Good luck Lou! Love Lizzie and Simon Ball |
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Gwendolyn Wynne £100.00 14.07.11 Dearest Ralph, Would love to hear your day by day story as you ride. Sending love and you keep on supporting all those amazing women! Love you, Gwen |
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Guppy £100.00 (+ £25.00 giftaid) 10.07.11 Good Luck Lou and Mel, we're proud of you. Love the Guppies |
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Steve and Loretta £100.00 (+ £25.00 giftaid) 30.06.11 Proud of you!! Loretta and Steve xx |
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Luke £100.00 (+ £25.00 giftaid) 29.06.11 |
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Glen & Christine Richardson £10.00 (+ £2.50 giftaid) 16.06.11 Go Ralph! |
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Eamonn. £400.00 (+ £100.00 giftaid) 30.05.11 Very proud of you bro. |
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Sir Nick Partridge £100.00 (+ £25.00 giftaid) 20.05.11 I hope this is a help for your ticket to ride for 350 miles on a long and winding road. God only knows how you'll manage it, but wouldn't it be nice to catch a wave on a Ghanayan beach when you're done! Ralph, make it a magical mystery tour - Nick x |
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Andy Holmes £20.00 (+ £5.00 giftaid) 19.05.11 Respect, Ralph my friend. And here, as promised, is that £20 - turning up again just like 2,000 bad pennies. |
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Tony £75.00 (+ £18.75 giftaid) 19.05.11 All good Ralph |
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Chaz £100.00 (+ £25.00 giftaid) 18.05.11 Good luck Mr B, make sure you keep a safe distance between you and those pesky insects. Mwahhh |
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BHA Mike £25.00 (+ £6.25 giftaid) 18.05.11 Good luck - after all what could go wrong. |
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Gavino £30.00 (+ £7.50 giftaid) 18.05.11 Viva! |
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Richard D X £25.00 (+ £6.25 giftaid) 17.05.11 Well done you! Go Ralph, go! |
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Marion B £50.00 (+ £12.50 giftaid) 14.05.11 Good man --- Good luck !!! |
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bridget fishleigh £20.00 (+ £5.00 giftaid) 13.05.11 you are crazy! do you want to take a solar powered charger for your phone? i work for a company called Suntrica that makes them. Not that they'll be a phone signal where you are going! |
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mebs Keshani £50.00 (+ £12.50 giftaid) 13.05.11 Nice one Ralph! wishing you all the best and maybe you will be able to cycle it to Kingsbury!! x |
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Pete Thomas £100.00 (+ £25.00 giftaid) 12.05.11 RALPHY!! be careful with that chaffing! and why don't u invite me down to brighton one day? love&peace pt |
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Jules £150.00 (+ £37.50 giftaid) 12.05.11 Go Ralph, go. |
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Alex Lynch-White £25.00 (+ £6.25 giftaid) 12.05.11 Good Luck Ralph and Team! Don't forget the sunblock! xxx |
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Kevin and Ian £20.00 (+ £5.00 giftaid) 11.05.11 All the best, hope you don't get too saddle sore !! |
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Reggie £100.00 (+ £25.00 giftaid) 11.05.11 Good luck precious!! x |
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Anonymous £20.00 (+ £5.00 giftaid) 10.05.11 From a Seagulls Fan - good luck |
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Clare Cathcart £20.00 (+ £5.00 giftaid) 10.05.11 good luck you lovely man...will give you more if I ever get another job! |
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Richard and Caroline £30.00 22.04.11 Great initiative - wishing you all the best with it, Ralph |
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Karen James £10.00 (+ £2.50 giftaid) 21.04.11 What a fantastic gesture to give so much for families living in such poor conditions which we at home take so much for granted. Good luck to Ralph and all who take part. You are Champions. |
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conrad and gaynor £30.00 (+ £7.50 giftaid) 20.04.11 good luck |
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Richard C £500.00 (+ £125.00 giftaid) 19.04.11 Good luck Ralph! |
