Black Star Blog

This is not going to be a flashy blog entry with all the cool photos and nice wave shots like some of  the others.  However, this is probably the most important blog so far, at least as far as the community of Busua is concerned.

One of our previous blog entries talked about the Community Tourism Center (CTC) Project and how we took a delegation of Busua representatives to the Volta to see first hand successful CTC models and talk to the locals about their work, challenges and successes. These representatives came back pretty pumped up about doing something in Busua like they saw in the Volta!

Tim and Riley were the interns working full time on this project until they left this Winter to go back to their lives in the US and Holland. There is now a new intern, Will Anderson, a Kiwi who has taken up the project where Tim and Riley left off. Many positive things have happened over the past several months, which were built on the foundation of the previous work that our interns and the community had accomplished over the past year.

Maybe a quick recap of what the CTC is and how it will work is in order. Basically, the CTC will be a physical space where all tourist who visit Busua will come to register. While at the CTC, tourists will have the opportunity to learn about activities to do in Busua and the surrounding areas, organize guided tours and boat trips, learn about the community development projects the community is working on, as well as get non-baised information about place to stay, eat and be entertained while staying in Busua. In many ways this will be the first time that the community at large will have a say in how tourism is developed in their village. Other CTC’s in Ghana have generated significant revenues from their CTC’s and have used these funds to build community water systems, health posts, and also established scholarship funds for both secondary school and university. All this and more is possible in Busua!

So now back to the progress report. Since this Winter we have been able to open a community-run Internet cafe that is being temporarily housed at Black Star Surf Shop until the permanent CTC is built. See blogs in coming weeks to learn more about the CTC Internet Cafe. This is great progress! More importantly we have found a place to build the permanent CTC and have received some funds to accomplish this goal. With the help of some very generous people, we have secured over USD $14,000 to build our Community Tourist Center. Construction should start sometime in the next couple of months. The next important step will be writing a constitution for the CTC that very clearly states everyone’s roles, duties and obligations to the CTC, how the finances will be run and who will benefit. The community representatives will be writing this constitution with the help of GREET, an empowerment NGO  that works with the CTC’s throughout Ghana.

Stay tuned as we take this project to its successful and sustainable completion. We are hoping to have the opening for the CTC sometime in August. Come join us for the celebration if you happen to find yourself in Ghana!

Good news on the community development front in Busua! About 6 months ago, and with the help of interns Tim Lucas and Riley Bartlett,  the Black Star Surf Shop initiated the Busua Community Tourist Center (CTC) Project. The black star development team (Tim, Riley, and Pete) have helped the community, represented by the Town Tourist Committee and the Ahanta Environmental Club, to get this project off the ground. It is all of our belief that having a community-run tourist center will benefit the local community in many ways and see to it that they get a tangible benefit from the growing tourism in and around Busua.

To date, we have secured a piece of land for the CTC site from the Ahanta Chief in Busua (thanks Chief!), surveyed the land,  and took a group of Busua representatives to see existing successful CTC’s that are operating in the Volta Region of Ghana. This trip was highly successful as it was an opportunity to both see success in action and to ask questions on how the communities were running their CTC’s and how they were benefiting.

Busua reps visit the Volta

We are now in the process of writing a constitution to spell out exactly how the CTC will function and who will be involved. We are working with three NGO’s- RC, SNV and GREET- to ensure that there is a good chance the capacity building training will lead to a sustainable project. We also recently received a private donation that will help us continue to build on our successes as a community and to achieve, with the help of the above NGO’s, full funding for this project.  We are also currently involved in other community projects, like introducing solar oven and some microfinancing for local tourist businesses, but more on that later…..

You have to do something when the waves are small !!!!!!