Monday, 20^th May 2013

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Eamon Gilmore T.D., together with Minister for Trade and Development, Joe Costello T.D., today announced the winners of the 2013 Simon Cumbers Media Fund Student Competition.

Sally Hayden of Trinity College Dublin and Clare Herbert of University College Dublin met with the Tánaiste and

Minister Costello in Trinity College where the announcement was made this afternoon.

The two masters’ students were selected from a pool of 15 applicants and will both travel to Malawi later this year to produce media reports based around the themes of justice and gender equality.

Sally Hayden, who is studying for an MSc in International Politics at Trinity, will examine the position of women in Malawi one year after the first female President, Joyce Banda, took power. As part of her prize, she will be mentored by The Irish Times.

Clare Herbert, who is studying for an MA in Human Rights at UCD, will also travel to Malawi where she will report on the Rule of Law project.

The Rule of Law project – which is designed to increase access to justice for Malawians – is jointly funded by Irish Aid and the Law Council of Ireland. Clare will be mentored by the online news agency, Storyful.com.

The Simon Cumbers Media Fund – which is supported by Irish Aid – is designed to increase informed coverage of global development issues in the Irish media by offering support and funding to Irish journalists who wish to report on relevant stories abroad.

Previously, journalists including Fergal Keane of RTE, Orla Barry of Newstalk and  Suzanne Lynch of the Irish Times have been financed by the Media Fund to report from South Sudan, Ethiopia and Tanzania and Uganda.

The student competition is open to all third-level students in Ireland.

Speaking at Trinity College earlier today, the Tánaiste said:

“Through their work, Sally and Clare will be able to highlight the importance of justice, human rights and gender equality in improving the lives of vulnerable communities in the developing world. The stories they report back will, no doubt, illustrate the important progress being made in Malawi, but also the many challenges still facing ordinary people there. I very much look forward to reading their reports.”

Minister for Trade and Development Joe Costello said: “Irish Aid funds the Simon Cumbers Media Fund because we recognise the crucial role the media plays in shining a light on injustice and inequality globally. They also highlight the huge progress  that is being achieved right across Africa and the developing world, which is very important. I would like to congratulate Sally and Clare for their excellent projects and thank our media partners in the Irish Times, Newstalk and Storyful for their support.”

Sally Hayden said: “I’m incredibly honoured to have won the print category. The chance to meet people who are directly affected by the things I am studying and to write about that experience will provide the sort of education that can’t be achieved in university. I’ve never been to Africa, and have always wanted to go.  I’m also very excited to be mentored by Paddy Smyth of The Irish Times, whose work I hugely admire. My article will focus on profiling women in Malawi, against the background of the leadership of Joyce Banda, Malawi’s first female head of state. I’m so thankful to the Simon Cumbers Media Fund for giving me this chance, and to everyone who supported me with my application.”

Clare Herbert said: “I’m delighted to have been selected as one of the recipients of the Simon Cumber student scheme. I will be travelling to Malawi and Zambia this summer to report on the work of Irish Rule of Law, an Irish legal charity promoting human rights in developing countries. I’m very grateful to Irish Aid, and their media partner Storyful, for this wonderful opportunity.”

Full details of the Simon Cumbers Media Fund Student Scheme are available at: www.simoncumbersmediafund.ie/students.

For further information on Irish Aid visit www.irishaid.ie

Contact: Emily Kelly, DHR Communications, Tel: 01-4200580 / 087-9759248 or Fionnuala Quinlan, Irish Aid, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on 01-4082653/ 087-9099975.

Note to Editors:

• The Simon Cumbers Media Fund was established by Irish Aid in memory of Irish journalist Simon Cumbers, who was killed in Saudi Arabia while working with the BBC in 2004.  The fund is designed to promote more and better quality coverage of development issues in the Irish media.
• The student scheme was introduced to give students a greater understanding of development issues.
• Irish Aid is the Government’s programme of overseas assistance. It is managed by the Development Cooperation Division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
• The winners were decided by panel of judges, which includes representatives of the Irish Times and Newstalk, Storyful.com, Irish Aid, the media and members of Simon Cumbers’ family.
• In addition to securing a budget to cover travel and accommodation costs, the successful students will be offered guidance and one-to-one mentoring from journalists within two of Ireland’s leading media organisations: The Irish Times’ Foreign Policy Editor, Paddy Smyth; and Managing Editor at Storyful.com, Markham Nolan.

FROM CAPE COAST TO BUTTERFLY AND MONKEY SANCTUARIES

I am in Ghana seeking interesting Community Tourism Projects that I can recommend to people in Ireland. I was fortunate in my first few days to find the Wassa Domama Rock Shrine just north of Cape Coast about 180 km from Accra. I described it in my previous blog post.

BOBIRI FOREST BUTTERFLY SANCTUARY

From there I proceeded north to Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city, on a good road in a tro-tro (local public minibus) which cost €4 for the 3.5 hour trip. I then took another tro-tro to Bobiri Forest Butterfly Sanctuary, a 55 km sq pocket of near-pristine forest 30km outside Kumasi. It has been conserved as a forest research station for 70 years and one of the great thrills of a visit is the walk out there from the main road, along a mud track that runs through farmland with locals tending maize and oranges. Once you reach the forest gates the temperature suddenly drops to an alluring coolness as the trees form their own microclimate. The dust and haze of the open fields are soon forgotten as the forest smells and sounds of birdsong and running water take over.

Within twenty minutes one arrives at the rangers’ station in a small clearing amidst the trees where one pays €2 for a forest tour. The sounds of weavers, waxbills and bulbuls, not to mention a myriad of invisible insects and reptiles, become deafening at times, and wherever one looks butterflies are dancing – over 340 species of them amongst 100 different tree species.  While not strictly a community tourism project it is a serene and beautiful place to relax and there is an elegant, spotlessly clean forest rest-house with large rooms looking out onto the giant trees, which cost €10 a night. Dinner and lunch can be provided too. It would make for an ideal place to spend some days if travelling with children. What child wouldn’t adore living in a comfortable brick house in the jungle surrounded by butterflies and the possibility of seeing white-nosed and green colobus monkeys? The money one spends goes to the forest service rather than directly to the community, but it is then used to educate local villagers on environmental issues and to discourage poaching and logging.

There are a whole range of community tourism sites in this area – mostly craft-making villages, but also traditional Ashanti shrines. I have no great interest in African crafts and loath shopping so I bypassed these, I’m afraid. Most tourists would be content with the general range and quality of craft items available in towns and would not necessary appreciate the finer products available in these villages, although I’m sure it is fun to see the craft process. International NGOs have put huge amounts of money and effort into establishing community tourism projects in the region’s Kente craft-weaving villages, bead-making villages and woodcut-carving villages, but I am just not the target audience.

So, we’ll skip on, simply mentioning that some of the area’s primary craft villages are Adanwomase, Bonwire, Effiduase, Besease.

I travelled on to Mampong, keen to visit the wonderful new Moon and Star Guesthouse in the nearby village of Banko run by a Dutch woman, Patricia Zoer. My excitement about this place stems from the fact that is so rare to find European-run tourist facilities in the interior of Ghana. The guesthouse has only been open for a few months, but it has the potential to encourage more tourists to this region. Most foreigners one meets in Ghana are either NGO workers or student volunteers, and any tourists one does see tend to be confined to the southern coast. This lack of visitors means that tourist facilities can be rudimentary, discouraging future holiday-makers, and making it pointless to set up community-based tourism initiatives.

If the Moon and Star Guesthouse manages to tempt tourists to come up from the coast it will benefit all the local craft enterprise, and might lead to the development of guiding companies and bike-renting agencies. The guesthouse is set in an area that is not spectacularly beautiful, but there’s the potential to develop great walking routes through the scenic region of tropical forest around the Atwia escarpment. There are a series of low peaks to climb, most interesting is the Abesua Prayer Mountain, a part of the escarpment popular with Ghanaian pilgrims with steps going right up the mountain and tea stalls along the way. Again, while Moon and Star Guesthouse is not strictly a community tourism project either, it’s owner Patricia is one of the founders of the neighbouring orphanage and the guesthouse is intended to help fund her local community development and humanitarian work.

BOABENG-FIEMA MONKEY SANCTUARY

I keep heading north to the town of Nkoranza outside Techiman to visit the Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary. For the last 150 year two local communities have believed that the local Mona monkeys and black-and-white colobus monkeys were descendants of gods and have therefore protected and fed them.  The two communities now depend on tourists coming to visit the small 35 hectare forest sanctuary where one can get up closer to wild monkeys than is possible elsewhere. It is illegal to hunt monkeys and so they have little fear of humans. They come to the village when they are sick or old,  and are given a human burial. The forest, the monkeys and their wonderful story makes for a perfect tourist experience – a genuine glimpse of the eccentricities of African culture and, so, a perfect community tourism project that is of direct benefit to the local people.

There is a forest rest-house one can stay at, but I chose instead to stay at Operation Hand-in-Hand a visionary and utopian guesthouse set up by a Dutch doctor in a community-based project for children with mental disabilities. It proved to be one of the highlights of my trip. The centre is immaculately clean and run with evident love and care by local staff and European volunteers who keep the children well-stimulated. The children clearly thrive on their interactions with visiting tourists and are enormous fun. The crafts made by the older children are beautiful and skilfully rendered – jewellery, batik bags, beadwork, laptop cases, etc.

VOLUNTEERING

This would be an ideal place to do voluntary work in Ghana. One would feel genuine pride in the work one was doing and the surroundings in which it was being done. While Ghana, being English-speaking and safe, is a popular destination for volunteer programmes, finding good placings can be tricky. I met a few European volunteers frustrated at the work they were doing, or the lack of work – feeling they were unwanted and largely a burden. The Moon and Star Guesthouse can also arrange high quality volunteer positions at the local orphanage – the amount of work one does with the children depends upon one’s own initiative. I would love to see volunteers going out there to help set up hiking trails.

MOLE NATIONAL PARK

I headed on to my northernmost destination, the semi-desert town of Tamale, 4 hours north of Techiman. Tamale and the north, in general, is as vehemently Islamic as the south is Christian. Mosques on every street corner,  just as there had been churches and chapels in the south. It was also blisteringly hot. I spent the day trying to arrange a bus ticket to the top tourist destination in Ghana, Mole National Park. It is definitely the national highlight, but so few tourists go that there is little by way of tourism infrastructure and there is only one local bus a day – a clapped-out banger that frequently breaks down along the punishingly hard unpaved desert track. I ended up waiting five hours at Tamale bus station, but the trip was a pleasant three hours on a bus crammed with tired, weary locals heading through a pristine semi-desert landscape. Entrance to the national park cost €8. €8! Entrance to parks in East Africa costs ten times that.

The park was magnificent. The lodge (called a motel) is on a high escarpment right above a watering hole, so that in dry season the animals gather right beneath the lodge. While sitting at the bar beside the swimming pool I was able to see elephants drinking, warthogs sniffing and various deer-like creatures grazing. (I realise that sitting at swimming pools is not normally part of the working day for journalists who benefit from the Simon Cumbers Media fund – but . . .) There were baboons, bushbucks and crocodiles too. My first night I spent in the enormous president suite, which cost me €40, and my second night I slept on a bunk in the dorm for €9. Normal rooms costs about €20. There were roughly 40 foreigners there, though 90% of them weren’t actually tourists, but NGOs or volunteers taking a break.

Mole National Park was the Holy Grail for me.  I’ve always been hoping to find somewhere in Africa where families could encounter the famous wild animals of Africa at affordable prices. Best of all is that Mole allows walking safaris, so that one actually gets to walk right up close to elephants, warthogs and baboons, which have little fear of humans because they have not been hunted in decades. This is especially the case for three particular elephants who are almost tame and occasionally graze on the leaves and grasses around the camp. Although, that said, the lack of fear shown by the baboons is a problem. They regularly raid the terrace tables around the swimming pool for food and it is petrifying to suddenly see a 30kg baboon looming towards one. A two-hour walking safari costs €4, while a jeep safari costs around €15, depending on the amount of people. You’re more likely to see hippos, buffalos, antelope, monkeys, waterbucks and more elephants from the jeep. Lions and leopards are present, but rarely, if ever, seen.

There is a community tourism project within the confines of the park at Mognori village. It began in 2003 to enable the locals get some direct benefit from the tourists who pass through the area, and to compensate locals for the damage elephants inflict on their crops. An eco-tourism project was founded, providing canoe safaris along the Mognori river, which is rich in birdlife and overnight homestays in the chief’s daughter’s compound or camping trip further into the park.

LARABANGA MOSQUE

Right outside the entrance to Mole National Park is the village of Larabanga with its mud-and-stick built, whitewashed mosque, said to date from the 15^th century. There are a few of these West- Sudanese style mosques in this part of the Sahel which are re-plastered each year, and though they are ancient, it is hard to tell how old. Until recently requests for community donations from tourists in Larabanga were approaching levels of persistence that ruined the experience for many, but that has eased now, and the village feels friendly and welcoming. One of a group of local young men guide visitors around the village and rattle off a high-speed history of the mosque.

TRANSPORT TO MOLE NATIONAL PARK

The return trip from Mole National Park to Tamale is straightforward, as the Metro Mass bus parks overnight in the camp and leaves from there around 4.30am. I wish I could say the same about the trip from Tamale to the National Park. No doubt, if tourist numbers increase a private bus will operate on the route, but for the moment visitors face some obstacles. To get a ticket on the bus from Tamale to the National Park one must get to Tamale’s Metro Mass bus station at 6am, and then wait around town until 4pm when the Metro Mass bus leaves. You arrive at the national park sometime between 7.30pm and midnight. An entire day is wasted. Alternatively you can get the 6am Metro Mass bus from Tamale to Larabanga and get a ride on a scooter from there to the park, which should cost about €2.50 – this may not be practical for many, but it does allow one reach the park by 2pm and have the whole afternoon and evening for game-watching. Another option is to get a taxi to bring you – it might cost roughly €70, which for 4 people would be well worth it.  There is also a minibus service – for $240 Rusmond Anyinah will provide a return trip by minivan. His address is  tours-tml@mandjtravelghana.com This may suit a group, though I have never met Rusmond and cannot vouch for him.

THE VOLTA REGION

I took a Starbow flight south from Tamale back to Accra for €70, as going by bus would have taken 11 hours, wasting another day – travelling at night is not safe in Ghana and must never be attempted. Crashes are frequent, mainly because Ghanaians believe that using headlights costs petrol. From Accra, I took a bus straight up to the town of Ho in the cool, lush Volta region in the highlands of eastern Ghana. I am always keen to find areas of high altitude in the tropics as the climate suits Irish people better, and the Volta region proved ideal. It is a lot more affluent than the northern desert and has less visitors than the southern coast, and so the welcome is all the more genuine. I took a shared taxi from Ho to Amedzofe, a gorgeous mountain village with a wonderful community tourism programme, in which charming, intelligent local villagers will bring you on a tour to the Amedzofe Falls and to the nearby peak of a Mt Gemi. They also have longer multi-day walks through forested mountains, where the tree canopy provides continual shade. The hill and waterfall tour cost €1 each, and it is always advisable to give the same amount again by way of a tip. The community guesthouse has a shared kitchen, so visitors can finally try experimenting with the courgettes, okra, tomatoes, plantains, chillies, herbs, dried fish, spinach and spices for sale in the markets. My guide here was a remarkable man named Destiny. He’d make for a charming and honest Ghanaian fixer/guide.  oskrisdestiny@yahoo.com tel: 0547297493. Amedzofe has an elegant new hotel called Abraerica Hospitality Hotel overlooking the mountains.

But, for me, by far the best please to stay in the region is the glorious Biakpa Mountain Paradise Lodge outside the village of Biakpa straight down the hill from Amedzofe. You can either get a taxi around or clamber straight down through the jungle, being careful of snakes and avoiding slipping into the abyss never to be heard from again. It’s a steep, muddy track through lush old-growth forest, but provides a great adrenalin rush, especially with the backpack constantly pushing one forward. Mountain Paradise Lodge is a former government rest-house converted into an eco-lodge with great walking trails through the mountains, similar or identical to those available up hill in Amedzofe. The deep sofas on the old colonial terrace looking out over the verdant hills are ideal for chatting, reading and journaling. The food is the same rice and beans, fried plantain and chewy stews that one finds elsewhere, but the coffee is excellent and there are some quirky locally made cocoa wines available. This too would be an ideal place for a family to rest a while, especially after the sweltering heat of the northern semi-desert. Just sitting on the veranda would be heaven for a few days. A basic en-suite room with gorgeous views costs €18. Dinner with a beer and water will cost €8.

VLI FALLS

I continued an hour north by tro-tro through the Volta region to the town of Hohoe and from there took a tro-tro to Wli Falls near the Togolese border. (It is important to stress that catching a tro-tro is almost always remarkably easy – it simply requires going to the shared-taxi stand in the local village/town and waiting a relatively short period for a car to fill up. They cost pittance.) There is a short forest walk through the Agumatsa Wildlife Sanctuary to the lower falls – beautiful to swim in with the water powering down over one and a vast colony of straw-coloured bats flitting through the air above. There is also a far more demanding walk to the upper falls that should be done with a guide. The best place to stay is Waterfall Lodge, a German-run guesthouse.

There is a nice community tourism site nearby at Likpe Todome where the village arrange walks to the network of caves which house bat colonies. The caves are nearby, but there is a gorgeous 5 hour walk that can be done in the area, including visiting a waterfall. There is also great potential for hiking with the guidance and support of local villagers on Mount Afadato. At almost 900m, it’s the country’s highest peak. Its forested slopes shelter monkeys, almost 100 bird species and countless varieties of butterfly. There are two routes up, from two separate villages, both with community-based tourism enterprises, providing guiding and accommodation. The route from Gbledi Gbogame is shaded by tree cover whereas the Liati Wote trail is open to the sun and provides all-round views. Irish people should choose the shaded option. The trail can be as short as 2 hours, or extended for many days. They cater for both day-hikers and long-distance eco-trekkers.

From there, it’s an easy tro-tro or bus-ride back to Accra to fly home. The entire trip outlined here would take 2 ½ weeks. Alternatively it could be done as two separate 8-day trips: one consisting of the coastal towns with a quick trip up north through the monkey and butterfly sanctuaries to Mole National Park. The second trip would involve a tour to the Volta region combined with either a trip to the coastal cities, or a quick flight up to Mole National Park.

But for me it was the sheer scale of Bulengo that took me by surprise. I’ve been to many refugee camps but never one as massive as Bulengo, I had never witnessed need on this scale, this is where 60,000 people have fled to seek shelter and safety.

As far as the eye can see, Bulengo is made up of lines upon lines of barely-held-together-huts. It’s called a spontaneous site by NGOs here which means there have been no tarpaulins distributed for shelter although there are some health centres.

Even if the shelter is a few scraps of fabric held up by sticks, and inadequate food distributions where you sleep surrounded by strangers, Bulengo still offers safety to these families who have fled the latest flare-up in violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The camp is on the outskirts of the provincial capital of Goma. It’s about 12 kilometres from Goma, down a saturated mud road for the last 4 kilometers. It’s one of 3 major camps near here, home to at least 200,000 people who have had to flee their land in this province alone.

On the day I visited Bulengo, food distribution was taking place. Red pieces of string were stretched across sections of the flat area at the centre of camp, indicating places for people to queue to put their thumb-mark in ink beside their name on the allocation list, to queue again in small groups to share out their rations of palm oil, yellow beans, maize flour and salt.

There was a never-ending mass of people going through this queuing process, all of which had to be done in one day. They held their plastic containers and their sacks as they moved through the queues, talking as they went, keeping an eye out for straying children and old people in need of a hand with the system.

Once the rations were distributed to each group, they shared them out, tempers sometimes flaring when the maths of each distribution group let them down. But mostly they were just busy, carrying children, loading up sacks, dividing up the rations, getting help to carry the sacks back to their temporary homes.

I stood in the middle of the flat space at the centre of Bulengo, surrounded by Goma’s odd volcanically-formed hills, and watched all this activity. This place was home to the equivalent population of a major town in Ireland, a site with almost no facilities, home to so many people for an indeterminate period of time. People who have to rely on food distribution which is based on half of their calorific needs for a month – the NGO says they expect them to make up the rest of their food intake through casual labour in the area.

On the way back, we spotted a police checkpoint set up nearby, set up to tax the lorries moving in and out of a nearby quarry. Further down the road, we passed a lorry bringing water which had already teetered off the road into the deep mud. Schoolchildren passed us, some farmers, some women returning to the camp after a day doing casual labour working in nearby fields.

As I arrived back to my house, it started to rain, just as night was falling. Later, yet another of Goma’s regular storms kicked off, the walls of my house were shaken by the force of the thunder, heavy rain fell throughout the night. I lay awake knowing that these meagre huts would not be able to protect these families – or their rations – from the downpour.

Wednesday, 17^th April 2013

A workshop for prospective applicants to the Summer 2013 round of the Simon Cumbers Media Fund will take place at 11am on Friday, 19^th April 2013, at the Irish Aid Centre, 27-31 Upper O’Connell Street, Dublin 1.

The Simon Cumbers Media Fund was set up to assist and promote more and better quality media coverage of development issues in the Irish media. Two rounds of funding are allocated every year: one in summer, and one in winter. The Fund was established by Irish Aid in 2005 in memory of the late Irish journalist and cameraman, Simon Cumbers.

During the workshop, representatives from Irish Aid will be on hand to provide details of the Summer 2013 round, including the themes and guidelines that must be observed by applicants.

Under the Simon Cumbers Media Fund, journalists are invited to submit proposals for coverage on a development issue, which will involve travel to a developing country.  The average grant awarded in 2012 was €3,040.43, and the closing date for receipt of applications for the Summer 2013 round will be Friday, 10^th May.

ENDS

CONTACT:  Emily Kelly, DHR Communications @ 01-4200580 / 087-9759248

‘Frank Gardner’s Return to Saudi Arabia’ will air on BBC2 tonight, Wednesday, 10^th April at 9pm. Frank was the Security Correspondent working with Simon Cumbers in Riyadh in 2004 when Simon was killed in a terrorist gun attack, which left Frank partially paralysed.

Tonight’s documentary will see Frank return to the scene of the attack for the first time since it happened, and meet the doctors who saved his life.

Read the article and view the complimentary photo gallery here.

Although by now I’m frustrated once again, as the entire day was wasted trying to get a visa for Togo. There is no embassy in Ireland or Britain. I would have had to send my passport to Paris, but I needed the passport in Dublin to get my Ghanaian visa and didn’t want to incur the courier charges. It’ll take 24 hours to issue the Togolese visa and I’ve no choice but to hang around in Accra until it’s ready. If I want a visa for Benin it’ll take another 24 hours, but I can’t afford to wait that long, so I’ll miss out on Benin.

Visa issues are one of the biggest hurdles to encouraging tourists to visit Africa. I have rooted out and reported on wonderful holidays in Uganda, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Tanzania, which cost just €35 a day for food, accommodation, guiding and transport and which provide enormous financial benefit to some of the poorest, most marginal people, but each time I’m faced with the problem that the visa will cost about €75 euro extra per person, which for a family can represent a significant outlay.  Togo, Benin and Ghana are all right beside each other and it makes sense to visit them at the same time, but doing so, would cost €220 in Visas, which is the equivalent of a flight in Europe. The African countries claim that the fee only reflects the cost of a visa for an African to come to Europe, and that if Europe lowers its visa charges for Africans, they will do likewise. It’s a valid point, but as the stalemate continues, tourism suffers.

To allay my frustration I head out to Kokrobite beach, where the local Rasta touts seem to have cottoned on to the notion of community tourism. After trying to sell me drugs and batiks, they pull notebooks from their pockets detailing financial contributions from tourists to their local sports club, or a fund for buying school books. They ask me to contribute, assuring me that the money will be well spent and fully accounted for, once it has entered into their notebooks. It’s clearly a scam, but I like the fact that the locals are beginning to accept the idea that tourism should benefit the entire community and not just the expats who builds the fancy resort or beach bar.

This southern coast of Ghana is the most developed part of the country, with the best tourism facilities, road infrastructure and businesses. I was not expecting to find community-based tourism here, as normally big firms or wealthy entrepreneur will have already taken control of most tourists opportunities and will muscle out any small-scale community enterprises. Possibly, the most famous tourist facility in Ghana is Big Milly’s Backyard, a laid-back, beach resort owned by an English/Ghanaian couple just outside Accra – a near-legendary institution among expats, volunteers and backpackers. While such places are definitely not community-tourism enterprises, they play a key role in attracting tourists to an era, who might then take side trips to community-based projects. And, at least, they provide some employment for local people, although it would shock and shame you to hear how little some pay their staff –less than the cost of one local beer per day.

But, to my surprise, I’ve found a really great community tourism project here in the south today. It was mentioned briefly in the Bradt and Lonely Planet guide books, but both books are many years out of date, and I could find no mention of it on the web, nor had the local tourist offices any knowledge about it. It’s called the Wassa Domama Rock Shrine, an eco-tourist project developed by the local people of Domama, with help from Nature Conservation Research Centre, Ghana Tourism Authority, the US Peace Corps, SNV Netherlands Development Organization, and Friends of the Nation with funding from USAID. Its aim is to provide a sustainable income to the local people. It was worrying for me when the tourist office had no information about it. I thought the project had fallen apart the way that so many community tourism initiatives do because of lack of visitors, but when I arrived in the village, having taken a tro-tro (public minibus), shared taxi and motorbike to reach it, I was greeted by a village elder who immediately signed me in and assigned me a guide. The guide was well-informed and had great English and I immediately felt welcomed in the village. This is the sort of community project, I like most – a small, welcoming village in a sun-shaded, forested out-of-the-way spot, with comfortable guest accommodation. The main activities available were a tour to the rock shrine which was a two-hour forest walk away, a canoe trip on the local river and a village tour. Accommodation cost €2 a night, dinner cost €5,  the tour cost €4, and the boat trip cost €6.

The project is built around a monstrous rock formation consisting of three giant interlocking rocks in the jungle, like an Irish dolman or something one might find in the Sahara. The rock shrine is eerily beautiful, cathedralesque and of sacred significance to the local people who believe it is the home of a local god.  It’s surrounded by a forest of high trees, ancient vines, and thick undergrowth with high canopy formation, a great place for butterfly and bird watching, and not to far from the famous Kakum National Park tree canopy walk. If I can find community-based tourism projects even half as good as this in the rest of the country, this will prove to be a very successful trip.

Part of me, if I’m being honest, is repelled by Africa at first. The heat, the dirt, the wanton need and chaos overcome me. I wonder whether I will have to cocoon myself in the expat world –staying in air-conditioned hotels, eating Western food, taking private taxis.  I know one oughtn’t to admit to such feelings, but it’s the truth. Africans tell me that they see the same happen to their children who study abroad in Europe or America; when they come back its hard to readjust. If they stay away too long they can never make the shift back and need to live the expat life, which is as expensive in Africa as it is at home.

The focus of my three Simon Cumbers Media Fund trips have been to address this chasm. While there are wonderful projects by Irish journalists reporting on poverty and human rights abuses, my focus is elsewhere. I want to try and bring our two worlds together, beyond the media, by direct person to person interaction – getting people to visit Africa. I write articles for The Irish Times and provide reports for current affairs programmes on RTE Radio, Today FM and Newstalk outlining ways that one can easily and affordably travel to Africa, to engage with the continent. My main interest is in Community-based Tourism projects – small, local tourist enterprises (guesthouses, walking trails, village tours, craft workshops) which provide opportunities for tourists to get a genuine, intimate sense of local life and where the profits go towards improving the community, as opposed to some wealthy tourist industry mogul in South Africa or London.

So far, I’ve reported on wonderful community-based tourism projects in Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique, all of which offer unforgettable experiences in beautiful areas for approx. €35 per day for all one’s food, guiding and accommodation costs. In my opinion, Community Tourism has the potential to be one of the greatest catalysts for improvement in Africa today; allowing enterprising communities in remote areas establish sustainable businesses which act as bridges between the developed world and Africa.

The Simon Cumbers Media Fund grant has given me the opportunity to root out a range of lodges, camps, hiking trails, ceremonial displays, medicinal tours, swamp walks and craft initiatives throughout East and southern Africa. I’ve been able to report on these for Irish audiences, many of whom write to me later to tell me how they’ve taken the trips and how profound the experiences were for them. Now I get a chance to explore West Africa.

Within days, I’m going to be in Ghana, back there for the first time in 24 years, speeding around the country as quick as I can on the rough roads, visiting every community-based tourism project that I have been able to track down: from the humid southern coast to the lush eastern highlands and arid northern semi-desert. Ghana is three times the size of Ireland and with unpaved, earth roads in places, it’ll be a long trip. If time allows it, I’m hoping to check out the neighbouring countries of Benin and Togo too.

This may be of interest to applicants to both the Student Scheme and the main rounds of the Simon Cumbers Media Fund.

Two past recipients of the Fund will make up part of the team delivering the training: Producer of Documentary on One, Nicoline Greer, who received funding under the Summer 2010 round of the Fund; and fellow Producer of Documentary on One, Sarah Blake, who was funded under the Winter 2011 round.

The rest of the team will be made up of Editor of Arts, Features and Drama at RTÉ Radio 1, Lorelei Harris; Producer of The Curious Ear, Ronan Kelly; Series Producer of Documentary on One, Liam O’Brien; Producerof Documentary on One, Chris Brookes.

The course, now in its second year, will run on Saturday, 13th and Sunday, 14th April, from 9.30am – 6pm, at a cost of €350.00 / €200 for the unwaged fee (on receipt of validating documentation).

To apply, download the application form, and return by email to radioevents@rte.ie by Monday, 25th March.

Fiona McGarry received funding under the Winter 2011 round of the Simon Cumbers Media Fund to travel to Haiti.

Almost three years after a magnitude seven earthquake struck the country, death is ever-present. Cholera  has killed 7,500 people alone, on top of the estimated 200,000 – 300,000 who died in the quake itself. With this project, Fiona looked at the problems that have arisen arising during the slow rebuilding process, due to disputes over land and delays with aid pledges.

Following her trip to Haiti, Fiona produced a four-part print feature series entitled ‘Beyond the Mountains’, which was published by the Connaught Telegraph on 4th, 7th and 14th, August and 4th September 2012; a feature-length radio documentary, entitled ‘Home Thoughts from Haiti’, which was broadcast by Midwest Radio on 30th December 2012; and an illustrated feature for www.mayotoday.ie in December 26, 2012, to publicise and to coincide with the radio documentary.

Listen to Fiona’s piece on Midwest Radio here, or read her article on MayoToday.ie here.