Students United for Africa, an organization on campus and recently chartered non-governmental organization, whose purpose is to “eradicate poverty in Africa through education,” sponsored a school in a village in northern Ghana as part of its ongoing mission.

This year, students brought books, chalk, and other school materials in their efforts to help build a library in the village.

“This is the second time that we’ve gone, and each time we have kind of a different mission,” SUFA Vice President Megan McCray said. “This time it was more educational, so we brought a lot of books; we’re trying to start a library.”

Though similar to SLU’s Global Medical Brigade, McCray said that SUFA is a separate organization that works with GMB.

The organization, which the government officially chartered as a charity in 2005, focuses on supporting education in Ghana.

The conditions of the neighborhoods in Ghana shocked SUFA members, some of which have never left the U.S.

“We’re going so far out into the country that cell phones don’t work there,” McCray said.

She said that the lack of water and the condition of the buildings bewildered students, and these made students want to improve the lives of the villagers.

“When we graduate, no matter what you participate in, you can always give something back because there’s always someone that needs [aid] more than you,” McCray said. “So you just learn to kind of take things in perspective,” she said.

Although SUFA’s presence in Ghana is to help out, McCray said that she encourages her members to form bonds with the local populace.

When she participated in a mission group to Haiti, group leaders insisted that the workers did not make friends with locals, and instead focus on service work, McCray said.

While in Ghana, she gave her fellow SUFA members a different order: “Make a relationship with the people and just remember them every single day,” McCray said. “I wanted everyone to develop a relationship with this village and with this school and remember it forever, because then they’ll always be working really hard to improve it,”

The chief of the village thanked the students for their help and commented that he hopes the village will not need their help in the future, McCray said.

“He is really grateful for us establishing a school there to help everyone out, but they ultimately don’t want any of their [charity organizations’] help,” McCray said.

“They received food aid up until two years ago, and then finally were able to produce enough food and have enough money to buy whatever food they weren’t able to produce and they don’t need that aid anymore.”

SUFA members said they visited the nearby town of Paga to see the local population of crocodiles.

The people of Paga never attacked the creatures and in return, the crocodiles never disturbed them. The crocodiles allowed SUFA members to pick up their tails and did not harm them, McCray said.

“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she said. “So the whole trip was full of things like that, that’s like- ‘I am holding a crocodile tail right now, this thing is going to turn around and bite my head off’- but it was really interesting,” she said.

On the whole, SUFA’s trip to Ghana aids the country’s poorer communities in reaching self-sufficiency and emboldens students to help people less fortunate than they are.

“What we get out of it is a change in our own perspective, and a change in our own lifestyles,” McCray said.