Treasurer in Ghana

Trustee and Treasurer Barry Hitchens visits our partners in Ghana

My wife and I took a few days out from our holiday in Ghana earlier this year to visit the three Partners that Street Child Africa supports there. I was curious to understand how the Management and Trustees of these NGOs measure the effectiveness of their support for street children in Accra and Kumasi.  I was reassured to find that they, like us, struggle with the dilemma of how to adequately measure qualitative improvements in street childrens' lives resulting from their interventions. They had exactly the same concerns as we donors, regarding how to get best value for money from limited resources and were constantly questioning and adjusting their interventions to improve their effectiveness.

Using a purely monetary calculation, I came away totally reassured that, despite the lack of a magic formula for calculating success in supporting street children, our money is being controlled by frugal, efficiency seeking, dedicated Managers and Trustees in Ghana. We were of course hugely impressed by the commitment, enthusiasm and compassion shown by the people we met, tempered by a reassuring down-to-earth assessment of the overall limitations of what can be achieved in the environment within which these wonderful people live and work.