Jau-Yon Chen Volunteers in Community Development Project in Ghana

NKANFOA, GHANA June 15, 2005 -- American Jau-Yon Chen recently finished her three-month program in Ghana working with women in rural areas on family planning and general health issues.

Jau-Yon's program took place in the rural town of Nkanfoa, which is near the city of Cape Coast in Ghana. She lived with a local Ghanaian family who provided her with meals and her own room and treated her like a member of the family.

Jau-Yon's daily work involved facilitating health workshops through the assistance of an interpreter. Although the topics covered – like family planning, birth control, and communicable diseases – were "crucial to their well-being," says Jau-Yon, "the women had little or no exposure to this information because of a lack of formal education in the community."

At the end of her volunteer program, Jau-Yon did some traveling around Ghana. She writes, "It was truly an African adventure that I will never forget in my lifetime." She visited the Lake Volta region, Mole National Park, an African-style mosque in Larabanga, "passed by" Tamale, and visited a remote village outside Bolgatanga.

Jau-Yon wrote upon returning to the US:

I cannot believe that my time in Ghana passed by in a blink of an eye. My 12-week stay there has come to an end. I just want to let [Cosmic Volunteers] know that my project there was a success, thanks to my dedicated interpreter and your Program Coordinator's care and attentiveness to each and every one of the participants.

Jau-Yon, who is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and Spanish, also volunteered in Costa Rica in 2004, as a translator for an ecological association as well as hospitality businesses.

Jau-Yon earned a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California at Los Angeles in 2002, with a concentration in International Relations. She is currently applying to masters degree programs in international affairs.