International Day of the Families

May 20, 2018

Tuesday was our first awareness raising event for this cohort. We are working with 3 communities and have 15 volunteers so split the group into 3 groups of 5 and we all went into the communities to do an event linked with an international day. We felt the most relevant one during our time here was Day of the Families. Like in the UK, families do vary from home to home. However, I have found the nuclear family is most common here with a mother, father and multiple children. Furthermore, it is common for extended family like grandparents and aunts/uncles to live together or nearby. Tamale and the surrounding area is a majority Muslim region and they do practice polygamy here, so it isn’t unusual to find a household with a husband and multiple wives. One of our volunteers lives in this kind of family unit in a complex that contains 27 members.

http://www.un.org/en/events/familyday/index.shtml - “Although families all over the world have transformed greatly over the past decades in terms of their structure and as a result of global trends and demographic changes, the United Nations still recognizes the family as the basic unit of society. The International Day of Families provides an opportunity to promote awareness of issues relating to families and to increase knowledge of the social, economic and demographic processes affecting them. It has inspired a series of awareness-raising events, including national family days. In many countries, this day is an opportunity to highlight different areas of interest and importance to families. The 2018 Theme: “Families and inclusive societies” explored the role of families and family policies in advancing Sustainable Development Goal 16 in terms of promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development.” In my opinion, no family should be shunned or seen as less if it doesn’t conform to “mum + dad + children = happy family”

The group I was with went to the first community, Zuo, where we met the PAGSUNG women and then walked to the local school to talk about the importance of families as well as respectfully challenging the nuclear family mind set and the roles of members of their families e.g. women involved in decision making or the importance of education. We also played some games like an egg and spoon race (eggs swapped for limes) and tug of war. In other communities, men and women came together to join in with activities, casting aside (if only briefly) their usual hierarchical believes which would stop them interacting in this way.

After the activities, the participants put their hand print on a board we had brought to represent their involvement in the day. We then gave these to a prominent member of the community to display e.g. we gave ours to the headteacher of the school we worked with. I’m already looking forward to going back into the communities and building on these relationships based on good first impressions.