Week 2 started off similar to week 1, my internal flight to Accra to meet with Unilever Ghana was cancelled. This turned out to be a good thing as there was so much work in Kumasi to be done. Our aim in week 2 was make sure the new recruits into the project, the Waste Collector, Service Associate, Contract Manager and Project Contractor were all trained up.

This was a very interesting part of starting up the trial, teaching people about sanitation and good hygiene who had little education in the area before. Everyone in the group really enjoyed the training as we tried to make it as interactive as possible using good, bad and in-between cards to indicate how to improve hygiene. The training was held at the offices of the Waste Management Department of the KMA, reflecting their ongoing support to the project.

The next phase was the practical training/interviews for the workers. We decided the best way to select the workers was to see how they performed in the field first. This was a good idea as candidates who flourished in the classroom fell apart on the field. The most worrying thing we found was the alcohol abuse by the workers in the sanitation field.

Key Learnings:

Getting the contract with the operators set up was a real challenge and a great learning for the future. Managing the stakeholders is very important in any project.