19. January 2025 – Light and shadow in Accra
Ghana is particularly proud of its Independence Square. Every year on March 6, a parade is held on the square by the sea, which is several soccer pitches in size. A united Ghana, liberated from colonial rule, is celebrated. The streets around it are parked up and congested. The square is full of school classes. The stands are full of enthusiastic spectators. Today it looks different. The square is clean and quite empty. No sign of traffic jams or traffic. Not even in the sports stadium opposite, where the so-called “Black Stars” regularly celebrate soccer successes for Ghana.
It is Sunday morning. It seems as if the whole of Ghana is at home or at church – as Michael, with whom we are driving through the capital today, explains. This is practical, as it means we pass the presidential palace, ministries, banks, the national theater, markets, universities and the Kwame Nkrumah mausoleum quite quickly. We want to go to the opposite side of the city, to Korle Bu or Agbogbloshie. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, would certainly not have liked what awaits us here: A huge garbage dump stretches along a river on the outskirts of Accra, the largest dump for electronic waste in the world.
It is easy to find the dump full of plastic, computer and consumer electronics waste. It is located a few hundred meters from the city center on one side and just as far from Accra’s largest and oldest hospital on the other. To our surprise, we have no trouble getting to the dumpsite, as do the estimated 40,000 people who live and work here. Using the simplest of means, mostly with their bare hands, they try to extract rare earths and metals from thousands of kilometers of discarded equipment. The remains are set on fire or transported away by the river, which flows into the sea a few hundred meters away. It smells awful, smoke is coming out of the garbage dumps in many places and there are houses right next to the seemingly endless piles. Only at second glance do we recognize the people picking up something from the garbage. Cows and goats graze next door. On the beach, children are washing themselves in the sea.
The sight is depressing. The situation makes us very thoughtful. It is inconceivable how close and how clearly rich and poor are in such close proximity in Accra. We also ask ourselves why more computers and flat screens are not given a “second life” in a HITA computer lab, especially in view of the fact that we visited another HITA computer lab just yesterday, in which all the computers installed are still working after six years and the school has even been able to expand the electronic teaching and learning facilities on its own initiative.
We leave this depressing place with one last view of the estuary and the sea, which has more than lost its charm at this point with huge bags of plastic bottles and grayish-oily shimmering waste sludge. Incidentally, the mountains of plastic bottles are presumably being collected for a new recycling plant that will be inaugurated in the coming days. As a young man who says he has been working at the garbage dump for a year explains to us, the collectors are currently paid 2 Ghana Cedi per kilogram of empty PET containers, which is around 12 euro cents. On his head, he carries his haul from the last four to five hours, which he takes to the collection point: Up to 40 kg of plastic waste that has not ended up in the sea today thanks to his work. A small ray of hope.
Back at the hotel, we meet Godwin France. The telecommunications engineer presents us with a concept for the continuous education of young people suffering from cancer, which is to take place with the help of electronic teaching materials, volunteer teachers and video conferencing with their schools while they are unable to attend school for their chemotherapy. Godwin and his NGO have already gained experience in supporting the education of young offenders. His concept is coherent and sounds promising. We are thinking about supporting him with IT equipment – initially for the pilot phase. Another ray of hope!