I went to Ghana with Platform2 July '08 and came back in October. I worked alongside the Afadjato Community Nature Reserve in Ghana, Africa, on a range of projects to help create alternative income generation schemes for the local population. This included boosting tourism opportunities by building trails to increase access to tourism sites and trenches to hold rain water and prevent flooding. Also we went into JSS and SSS schools teaching about global warming, environmental conservation and sustainability issues.

It inspired me to become more aware and pro-active in world events and issues such as global warming, it has also inspired my personal walk in my faith to make known to churches poverty and justice issues. And not to take things like water for granted. I realised we don’t need as much as we do in the west and I don’t put as much emphasis on material possessions and value relationships with people family and friends more.

I am currently a Christian Aid gap year volunteer and ambassador for Platform2. I’ve finished my degree getting a 2:1 overall and a 1st on my dissertation showing the effects that urban gospel music can have on community behaviour in young people and I’m married because my now husband missed me so much whilst I was away in Ghana (lol).

My hopes for the future in the context of global development issues are for poverty to be eradicated, especially in Africa and for it to be free of the debt the west puts on them, for Africa to become self-sufficient since they have all the resources they already need, and for the schooling system there to be improved.