Jonathan and Billy pour libation in Ghana

Learning the Ewe language was a passion for both, who are fluent speakers. They began digitizing the music, conversations, and stories that had been recorded while in Ghana. They realized a website could spread Ghanaian linguistic and cultural riches to people around the world. Furthermore, they sought to link the culture to the development projects they had initiated with their grassroots counterparts. The idea was to bring outsiders closer to Ghanaian culture so that they might feel more inclined to contribute or get involved.

However this initial pursuit was inadequate for their hopes to really make a significant contribution to impoverished communities in Ghana. Development in their eyes requires not only funding, but also a long term and involved partnership. Teaming up with a third Peace Corps Volunteer, Mike Kabisch, they created BRIDGE, an organization dedicated to working closely with indigenous social entrepreneurs in building grassroots organizations from the ground up.

As history has shown, economic growth in the Third World does not come from a “one size fits all” strategy, but is something that requires a deep understanding of the culture and institutions of a society. Development is also not something for “experts” to tell us all about, for they only know one aspect of the development dilemma extremely well. To take from an Ewe proverb: “knowledge is like a baobab tree, no one can get their arms around it.” Our knowledge of local culture and issues is an asset the we now realize can be used to bridge efforts in small villages to those in the more advanced societies.