three months in west africa - girton college, cambridge€¦ · ethical apparel africa (eaa). eaa...
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Three months in West Africa
I write this from Accra, Ghana, where I am two thirds of the way through an internship with Ethical
Apparel Africa.. At the end of this month I will also be travelling to northern Benin, to see some of
the sites and people that I have spent so much time learning about during my degree. Girton
college kindly contributed £400 to help me fund this experience, which has provided me with great
insight both into West Africa and experience of working for a social enterprise.
I arrived in Accra on 10th September. After a
weekend settling in and meeting my new
colleagues, I started work on Monday with
Ethical Apparel Africa (EAA). EAA is a social
enterprise, started by consultants and apparel
manufacturing experts who wanted to see a
change in how we produce fashion. EAA
strongly believe that mass production and
ethical production are not mutually exclusive, and that brands can and should be able to source their
products from factories that pay their workers living wages and maintain a healthy working
environment. EAA believes Africa is the new frontier for apparel manufacturing, given the large
labour force and high demand for jobs, and its favourable geographical location for shipping goods.
EAA is a social enterprise and consultancy company that acts as a partner on the ground for big
brands who want to invest in manufacturing in Africa but do not have the knowledge or time to
invest in bringing factories up to standard. By encouraging investment, EAA helps foster sustainable
business for factories, and therefore generates employment for hundreds of women in Ghana and
Benin. Moreover, EAA requires factories to reinvest profits into worker empowerment programs
such as literacy classes, healthcare and childcare provisions. I am working closely with the Impact
Team of EAA, helping to audit and monitor factories to improve safety standards and ensure fair pay
and working hours.
EAA works with several factories in
Accra (Ghana) and Cotonou (Benin). I
was fortunate to be able to go with
EAA to work in the factory in Cotonou,
which is just starting production for a
men’s shirt company based in the UK.
EAA had assisted the factory in
purchasing fire safety equipment and
personal protective equipment for
workers, such as dust masks. We also
saw the beginning of the construction
of a new fire escape. These changes
are all helping the factory to meet
compliance standards, which enables
them to secure regular, international orders.
We travelled to Cotonou by road, driving along the coast from Accra to the Togo border. After a little
visa trouble we crossed the border into Togo, stopping for lunch by the beach there. It took just over
an hour to cross the entire country, before we arrived at the Benin border. A slightly less stressful
crossing here, and then roads lined by palm trees as we drove along the coast to Cotonou - the
largest city in Benin.
Cotonou itself was very different to Accra, being less
‘developed’ and much smaller than Accra, and French
speaking. Streets swarm with motorbike taxis at rush hour,
crossing the Oueme river that runs through the city to the
Atlantic. Many people wear co-ordinating Dutch wax prints,
with families and couples often wearing matching outfits.
Beninise are very friendly people, and I enjoyed the
opportunity to finally practice my French with a very patient
and appreciative audience.
A few kilometres from Cotonou is the fishing town of
Ganvie, which is a stilted town built upon a lake, home to as
many as 35,000 people. We had a boat tour of the village,
which was unlike anything I had ever seen before. This
picture is of our guide, Bienvenue.
During other weekends I have also had the opportunity to explore Ghana. One of the most
interesting trips I did was to travel alone to Cape Coast in the West of Ghana. Along this coastline
there are over 40 forts, which were used most intensively for the transatlantic slave trade. The two
largest castles – Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle – are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. These
castles were built by the Dutch and Portugese, and were used as somewhere to store slaves until
they were ready to be transported across the Atlantic to the Americas. During our guided tour we
moved through the various cells and chambers where hundreds of slaves would be held, sometimes
for months on end. There are painful reminders of the extreme abuse that occurred at these sites. At
Elmina, you can still see the hidden
steps leading from the female
slaves’ cell to the governor’s
apartment, which women would
ascend, once they had been
selected by the governor to spend
the night in his room.
The castles were eerily beautiful
when I visited them, in the early
evening light. Yet the dark history of what these castles represent remained at the forefront of my
thoughts.
On other weekends I have visited Jamestown,
which is one of the oldest parts of Accra. It also
has a fort that was used during the slave trade.
Nowadays, Jamestown is famous for its music
and arts scene. It also has a proud history of
boxing, and has produced many of Ghana’s
champions. I also spent a weekend visiting the
Botanical gardens and going mountain biking in
Aburi, which is a town slightly north of Accra, in
beautiful hills. The photos show me at Cape
Coast castle, on top of Jamestown lighthouse,
and palm trees in Aburi Botanical Gardens.
As I am planning my final few weeks in West Africa, I am looking forward to spending my final two
weeks travelling. I aim to explore northern Benin in particular, which will definitely be a contrast to
life in Accra. After enjoying Cotonou so much, I feel I have to go back, and will look forward to the
adventure of travelling a less well trodden path, as I explore the remote northern parts of the
country…
By Lily Rice
7th November 2016