{"id":9456,"date":"2014-12-03T15:44:21","date_gmt":"2014-12-03T20:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=9456"},"modified":"2024-07-02T14:45:25","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T14:45:25","slug":"building-a-village-of-hope-in-ghana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=9456","title":{"rendered":"Building a Village of Hope in Ghana"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Devon<\/a>
Devon Leondis, founder of Village of Hope in Ghana.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How do you explain a calling? Devon Leondis curls her fingers into her palm and touches her hand lightly to her chest, explaining, \u201cIt was always something that was in my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

For as long as she can remember, the Carolina junior with the long dark hair and quick smile has wanted to help poor orphans in Africa. Now her dream is coming true as an entire Village of Hope rises from the ground up in Ghana, built with the first $1 million Leondis has raised for the project in the past year.<\/p>\n

She will need $1 million more to complete the village, an hour from the capital of Accra. The Village of Hope will have multiple three-bedroom apartments where six to eight orphans will live with selected foster parents as well as a fish and rabbit farm (sustainable sources of food), a playground, a school and a chapel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an eye-opening model for dignifying orphan care in Ghana and beyond,\u201d said Francis Osei, national director for the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) in Ghana, who met Leondis when she visited Ghana for the first time in 2010. Osei was impressed with the young woman he met and her \u201cinfectious love for God, friendliness, zeal to serve and generosity toward the needy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leondis, a communication studies major from Manhasset, New York, is incredibly modest about her work, telling only her closest friends and Phi Mu sorority sisters what she\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cDevon gets it,\u201d said her father, Steve Leondis. \u201cShe\u2019s just a remarkable young lady. I\u2019m so proud of her and what she\u2019s accomplished.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dressed<\/a>
Dressed as queen for the day, Leondis (center) and the villagers of Ntukum celebrate the village\u2019s new well.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He said that when his middle child was only 2 or 3, she prayed \u201cwith her Barney doll\u201d for poor children to have a home and food. When she was 9 or 10, those prayers crystallized into her calling to build an orphanage. And when it was time for her 16th birthday party, she raised money for Operation Blessing by asking for donations instead of gifts. The party raised $7,000, enough to build three wells that could supply fresh drinking water in two villages in Ghana.<\/p>\n

Six months later, Leondis and her father visited remote villages in Ghana for the dedication of the new wells. Ntukum (in-TOO-kum) was one of those villages, where close to 1,000 people had no access to clean water, plumbing or electricity. (Leondis later raised money for a latrine system as well.)<\/p>\n

The villagers were so grateful and happy to meet the young woman that they made her queen of Ntukum.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to go through a ceremony,\u201d she said. \u201cThey threw powder on me, they dressed me up, they lifted me up on their shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Leondis<\/a>
Leondis poses with two children who will benefit from Project Nyame Nsa.\u2018God\u2019s helping hand\u2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But the living conditions she saw in the villages were far from joyful: children with distended stomachs going to bed hungry; women carrying buckets of water and washing clothes by hand; men trying to farm with primitive tools; dusty red dirt everywhere; and no place but outside to go to the bathroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing the things that we saw, interacting with the children and the people, being immersed into a whole new culture in smaller remote villages, we almost felt guilty about the way we were living,\u201d Leondis recalled. \u201cEvery night, I would lie in bed and kind of be haunted by the images I saw.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their lives forever changed, she and her dad decided to form a nonprofit to provide help. With Steve acting as business manager (since Devon was still a sophomore in high school) and after a couple of years completing the required paperwork, Project Nyame Nsa (nah-MEN-sah) came to be. The name means \u201cGod\u2019s helping hand\u201d in the village\u2019s local dialect.<\/p>\n

Leondis began to raise money, this time by approaching individuals and asking them to make a three-year pledge to donate $1 or $5 a day, plus holding fundraising dinners and luncheons. An anonymous donor bought five acres of land near the village, and Project Nyame Nsa entered a partnership with Orphans Promise, based in Virginia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next step,\u201d her father said, \u201cis to continue to fundraise, apply for grants and move this forward, with completion in June 2016, right after Devon graduates from UNC.\u201d<\/p>\n

The original plan was to build a traditional orphanage, but the concept of orphanages is changing in Ghana. Ghana\u2019s Department of Social Welfare expressed concern thatdormitory-style buildings don\u2019t promote a home-like atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur friends in Ghana suggested that we create a home for vulnerable children and foster parents,\u201d Leondis said. Work has begun on one of three apartment complexes with family-style units that can accommodate trained caregivers (foster parents) and children of varying ages.<\/p>\n

But her dream didn\u2019t stop there.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur partners in Ghana helped transform and evolve this vision to make it so much more than we thought we could even do,\u201d Leondis said. The result was the more holistic Village of Hope.<\/p>\n

The Ghana-UNC connection<\/h3>\n
\"David<\/a>
David Opoku is a UNC MBA student originally from Ghana who is helping with Project Nyame Nsa.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Additional help at UNC came from the Center for Sustainable Enterprise \u00a0and the Campus Y\u2019s social entrepreneurship incubator The CUBE, through which Leondis was matched with consultant David Opoku, an MBA student originally from Ghana.<\/p>\n

Opoku is a Center for Sustainable Enterprise Leadership Fellow, pursuing a sustainable enterprise concentration in his MBA studies. Opoku was looking for a nonprofit organization to work with when he talked to Mathilde Verdier, coordinator of the UNC Social Innovation Initiative Program and manager of The CUBE, who told him about Leondis and her project. Verdier speculated that, with their mutual interest in helping poor people in Ghana, Opoku and Leondis would be a good match.<\/p>\n

The first time the two met, they spent two hours talking at Caribou Coffee. Although the teenager from Long Island and the man from Ghana who grew up in \u201cworse than the projects\u201d come from different worlds, they share a strong Christian faith and the same dream for a family-friendly way to help orphans and poor villagers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow it all came about,\u201d said Opoku, who is now a member of the board for Project Nyame Nsa, \u201cI think it was that God meant me to meet her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opoku serves as both a man educated about sustainable enterprise and one familiar with African, and particularly Ghanaian, culture. He promotes the idea that the Village of Hope should make itself truly sustainable, with villagers selling any extra food they produce at markets and starting their own small businesses like bakeries or repair shops. \u201cIn Ghana, we have a saying that if you climb the right tree, people will push you up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said it\u2019s also his job to look for any red flags related to the project and to make sure that the Americans\u2019 expectations match up with what the Ghanaians can actually do. \u201cOne thing about Africans and Ghanaians, they don\u2019t know how to say \u2018no,\u2019 even if they realize they couldn\u2019t deliver,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His pragmatism complements the idealism he admires in Leondis. \u201cShe is the real thing,\u201d Opoku said. \u201cI don\u2019t see this as a bunch of Americans trying to look down on the people they help. They genuinely want to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Leondis<\/a>
Leondis was moved by the plight of orphans in Ghana to start a nonprofit to help.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Orphans Promise is so impressed with the project that the charity has asked Leondis if she wants to expand it to other parts of Africa. \u201cI try not to think too far ahead,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s in God\u2019s hands at this point. Whatever\u2019s meant to happen will fall into place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her dad thinks he knows what will happen. \u201cWhat I\u2019m sensing is that Devon would like to spend six months in Ghana and six months here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As for what Dad wants: \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things. You want her next door to you, but if her heart tells her she needs to go to Africa, how can you say no to that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Learn more about Project Nyame Nsa at\u00a0projectnyamensa.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By Susan Hudson, Gazette<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How do you explain a calling? Devon Leondis curls her fingers into her palm and touches her hand lightly to her chest, explaining, \u201cIt was always something that was in my heart.\u201d For as long as she can remember, the Carolina junior has wanted to help poor orphans in Africa. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9456"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47083,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9456\/revisions\/47083"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}