Thank you for discovering this blog, brave internet traveler!  I hope you’ll journey with me while I tell you about a place, a cause, a method, and an organization that are incredibly important to me.  In our time together, I hope you’ll learn a little bit about me, and a lot of bit about a country called Ghana and an organization called Joy 2 The World.  Here we go!!

Let’s start at the beginning.  My name is Matt Brady and I play the bass in New Medicine.  Before the band and while attendin’ college at the University of Minnesota, I joined a month-long travel abroad course in Ghana, West Africa to study politics in the capital city, Accra.  I jumped on a plane in the summer of 2007 for my first trip out of the US (only recently after being able to find Ghana on a map), and equiped solely with a good attitude, backpack, and traveling pharmacy, thrust myself onto the African continent.

While pondering the perfect experience to share with ya’ll, I turn to my journal from my time in Ghana for inspiration, a tool I used to transcribe feverishly about my surroundings and interpersonal dialogue.  Nearly every other page I comment on the tempo of life in this new country and how, at times, it seems agonizingly slow.  Although I always qualify the statement in my journal by explaining my preference for this unhurried pace, in the end it’s apparent I’m still a westerner under the yoke of adaptation.  I write about my first tro-tro ride (The Ghanaian transport system), my twenty-first birthday in a foreign country (Johnnie Walker…), and my first cockroach infestation!  I scribble intensely about the appropriate way to eat a bowl of fufu, the appropriate way to barter in the market, and the appropriate way to pronounce words in Twi.  However, these same pages are also littered with the trauma from repeated episodes of diarrhea, inescapable heat, and home sickness.

My standout experience was the first time I was invited over to a Ghanaian’s home for dinner with his family.  I had met Phillip-Kweko at our hostel where he worked as a security guard and we had built our friendship over the preceding weeks.  One sun-scorched afternoon he asked me if I would come and I graciously accepted, attempting to contain my bubbling excitement.  I was introduced to his wife Philo, his extended family, and his two year old son, Isaac.  Phillip explained over dinner how he purchased the plot of land we sat on and how his family built everything on it themselves.  Their home is modest and only used as shelter; they prepare, cook, and eat meals in the community courtyard; they share resources and time for the benefit of their combined whole, a growing fifteen person family.  We spoke both of the challenges and our dreams for the future with a frankness I hadn’t had with any other Ghanaian, and I left this unfamiliar environment with an empenetrable spirit.

I fell in love with Ghana, and after returning home I knew i’d find a way to remain involved.  Two years later, I was internet surfing and stumbled across Joy2TheWorld!  J2W is a young non-profit organization created by Kathleen Gibbs, perhaps the raddest human i’ve had the pleasure of speaking with.  It’s goal is to expand the availability of micro-credit loans to businesswomen in rural areas throughout Ghana.  The group is focused on the village of Medie, a town of approximately 10,000 people.  As I read over her website, I was deeply drawn back to my experiences in Ghana and knew I had to get in contact with her.  After a slew of shared emails and a two hour conference call with Kathleen and her partner Kay Farjadi (ALSO awarded the “Super Rad Human” award), the three of us could hardly contain our enthusiasm for working together. 


New Medicine is proud to help spread the word and relay the stories of these amazing Ghanaian women.  Joy2TheWorld is enthusiastic about passing on the knowledge and practice of microcredit to our generation.  It’s our world and we get to choose the values for which we stand.  I’d like to do a seperate post about why microcredit is the absolute BEST thing since sliced bread, but here’s a quick look at the process and the goals.

ALLrighty, here’s a quick classroom version of what MICROCREDIT is in the first place.  Microcredit is the extension of very small loans to the very poor with the intension of encouraging entrepreneurship.  For example, women in rural Ghana may not have a verifiable credit history, steady employment, or enough collateral to qualify for even the smallest loan at a traditional bank.  Even if these women DID, the banking sector shows strong favortism towards loaning exclusively to men (lame).  That’s where J2W steps in!  They basically take everything a normal bank does, and reverse it completely.  In the words of Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the microfinance movement in the 1970’s, “If banks lent to the rich, I lent to the poor.  If banks lent to men, I lent to women.  If banks made large loans, I made small ones.  if banks required collateral, my loans were collateral-free.  If banks required a lot of paperwork, my loans were illiterate-friendly.  If you had to go to the bank, my bank went to the village.  Yes, that was my strategy.  Whatever banks did, I did the opposite (commondreams.org).”  In Yunus’ spirit, Kathleen, Kay, and Environmental Engineer John Wade go to Ghana twice a year to mentor the women in their businesses, advise solar power and well drilling projects, and build playgrounds in addition to their stunning microfinance work.  Yep, pretty great people.  No other way around it.

OK, I know this is crazy long.  But you made it this far, you get a cookie!! 

OK, here’s my grand finale.  I urge you so so deeply to get involved and to donate.  Normal aid is often abused by corrupt officials, and whether donated in the form of food or money, it is sometimes even used to benefit their armies and prolong conflicts.  Joy2TheWorld offers small loans for new businesses DIRECTLY to the people that need them most.  Women use the money to buy supplies and start selling at the local market, adding to her household income and creating a better life for her and her children.  Where traditional aid handouts may encourage dependency, microloans inspire independence, small-business leadership, and self-esteem.  ALSO, this organization is super small and run by a few volunteers here in the US, so you know your cash isn’t going to pad some huge executive’s salary.  It’s going to fund these microloans and the projects that benefit the village of Medie DIRECTLY.  I really don’t wanna do that corny TV thing where they say, “Youuu couuuld beeee the oneeee that makes a diiiference in the life of a chiiiiiild,”  but it’s premise is true, no matter how scary and zombie like that old man is.  These are MICROcredit loans; that fistfull of dollars in your pocket may finance a $50 loan that helps a woman buy a basket and bunches of bars of soap and towels that she can sell on local laundry day.  Now she’s got an income where she never had one before, and she can reinvest her money to buy more product and pay back her loan.  Seriously, it’s simple, and it’s really important.

THANK YOU for your eyes, brave internet blog reader.  Together let’s make it happen.


Brady
New Medicine