Abstract
African women are often an untapped force for social development. This chapter highlights one ordinary women’s extraordinary action to tackle unaddressed community needs, and how her responsiveness has resulted in twenty years of successful and sustained social community development practice. The case of Brothers and Sisters in Christ (BASICS) International, a woman-led NGO located in Ghana, West Africa, is used to elucidate knowledge on how this community-based organization is leading social community development in one of the poorest communities in Accra. Attention is placed on the investment strategies and processes used to facilitate development, and on the challenges and outcomes. Findings indicate that women can be powerful forces for advancing social development through local-level community development, and the evidence presented in this chapter highlights what ordinary women can do when circumstances demand extraordinary action.
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Tuggle, F. (2023). I’ll Find a Way or Make a Way: A Case Study of BASICS International’s Social Community Development Work in Ghana, West Africa. In: Krawczyk, K.A., King, B.A. (eds) Women’s Contributions to Development in West Africa. Globalization, Urbanization and Development in Africa . Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8190-6_2
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