Hillary Adongo is the director of the Restorative Seed Society (RSS) in northern Ghana.

“Growing up as a little boy in Bolgatanga in Northern Ghana, I spent most of my formative years helping my mother (a trader) in the market. This made me see the daily struggles of women as they strove to keep body and soul together and to feed their families particularly children. This experience shaped my world view of the real development issues in the Ghanaian society.

Years later when I founded Restorative Seed Society (RSS) with the support of some colleagues (Frank Aselisiya and John Baidoo) while as a student in the University, I was bubbling with energy to transform my society. My work at Restorative Seed Society after I graduated from the University even brought me closer and opened my eyes to the struggles of the wider society. I travelled to many rural and urban areas in Ghana on one mission or the other meeting groups of smallholder farmers, young mothers, youth groups and so on and carrying out various interventions.

After many years of work, sacrifice and personal frustrations, I sadly realized I could not ‘change the world’ as I thought as a young boy! Money, time and resources are not available for that.

But on the flip side of my wonderings was the answer: Doing the little things.

Many people in our society especially women are not sitting and waiting for help from heaven – they are busy working; making sheabutter, farming and trading in the market) to make life happen! What they need is a little push, a little support such as business advisory services, small loans, counselling services, agricultural extension services, teaching people to read and write etc. The little things.

I have come to realize over time that, addressing many complex issues in society (domestic violence, poverty, hunger, illiteracy etc.), may just require doing the little things.

And so in 2015, Restorative Seed Society started the Bolgatanga Literacy School to help non-literates especially women and girls read, write and communicate clearly and confidently in order to be able to go about their daily work easily and make more money for themselves and be able to feed their families and keep children in school.”

Today, RSS is busy founding another Adult Literacy School in Nabdam, after the successful example in Bolgatanga. Part of the funding came from Wilde Ganzen Klein (a collaboration between Partin and Wilde Ganzen). Find all about the project here: https://impactdirect.eu/project/literacy-school/