New Seed International

So while in Ghana I had the opportunity to spend two day's with the founder of New Seed International and spend an afternoon with the children of New Seed. This opportunity, while short, had a great effect on myself and the other eleven SASers that came on the adventure. It brought about a new concept and direction for my business as well as provided a great partnership opportunity to be able to make a difference in the dream of one man in Ho, Ghana, Livinus Acquah-Jackson.

Livius started New Seed as a program to help with refugee children that had come from Togo during the war in the late 90's and began living in the rural community. He opened New Seed as a rural and youth development organization and over the years it has evolved to focus on the following concepts:

* We want to ensure that all people living with HIV/AIDS in the area have access to all the medical care they need to avoid opportunistic infections and prolong their lives.
* Once their medical needs are satisfied, we want their nutritional needs to be likewise fulfilled. The drugs (especially antiretroviral drugs) will not work if the patient continues to be malnourished.
* We want to target and reduce the discrimination and stigmatization which those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, and their families, face every day by remolding the attitudes of the community and teaching them to accept and respect all people no matter what their HIV status may be.
* We want young women and men living with HIV/AIDS to become self-reliant so that they can maintain themselves and their families in improved, sustainable living conditions.
* We want today's youth to be fully educated and aware of the problem of HIV/AIDS which exists in their community and in the world.


Livinus is truly a passionate and dedicated man. While talking with him he began to talk of a typical day during his week. He will get a call that there has been a death of a mother due to labor or HIV/AIDS and there is a young child that has been orphaned. Some times these mothers have been dead for two to three days before they are found and the baby has been there the entire time. Livinus and community members will dig a hole, wrap up the body and bury it. He will then take the child to the hospital to be tested to see if the disease has spread to the child. He will then find a local member of the community who would be willing to take the child in. This is at least one day of every week for Livinus. At first he would cry when he saw the children and the mother's lying dead, but now, after so many years he has become accustom to it's horrors. It has become part of his daily life. After over a decade of dealing with this disease, seeing death first hand, he is still as committed and dedicated as he was twelve years ago when he founded New Seed.

He took in twelve american students he had never meet, brought us into his home to say, introduced us to his family, cooked us dinner and breakfast. All so that instead of spending money on a hostel or a hotel we would be able to use that small amount of money, about 5-7 USD, to donate to the school so that they could buy a little more nutrition packets, a little more medicine. He keeps with his mission and his philosophy that although the children may be infected by HIV/AIDS they can still become productive members of society if they receive the proper medical attention and an education.

After only a day with Livinus he had me believing in his dream, not through what he said, but through a philosophy of my own that I saw in him, conviction in action. He is so determined and committed that I could not help but associate myself with him. While we have different dreams and ambitions, the approach was similar. Through that I came about a new philosophy for SageMedia. My company is now adopting a local, national and international philanthropy to donate our time and money to. We have adopted the Denver Santa Clause Shop as our local and New Seed as our international. While I don't yet have a national cause I will begin the search shortly after I return. If anyone has suggestions I am all ears.

So now I begin the process of redeveloping New Seed's website, generating brochures and handout's to be used both in Ghana and at fundraisers that will be occurring at the University of Wisconsin and Vanderbilt University this coming fall. All free of charge to New Seed so that they can reach their next goal of $5,800 USD so that they can finish some small rooms for some of the children to be able to live in.

It was truly a pronominal experience and one that will stay with me for decades to come. This voyage truly has not been about the sights seen, but rather the people met and interactions with them. It is the people that make a place and to meet them, get to know them, where they come from and what makes them who they are has been a blessed and phenomenal time. And the children of New Seed and Livinus are a great example of what the wonderful country of Ghana has to offer.