Canadian nurse Michelle Labossiere was vacationing in Ghana in 2009 when she became ill with malaria. During that trip, she became acquainted with the hospital in the fishing village of Dixcove near the resort town of Busua Beach in the country's western region. Dismayed at the lack of running water for the patients, she decided that the hospital needed help.

On her return home to Edmonton, Alberta, Labossiere created the Rhythm International Foundation to raise money to help revitalize the hospital in Dixcove. The group held fundraising events throughout 2010, including publishing an anthology of poetry by Canadian and African writers. The anthology is titled Sun & Sand and the foundation has just published a second edition of the collection.

In the summer of 2011, five volunteers from Rhythm International travelled to Ghana to deliver the money they had raised and to volunteer at the Dixcove hospital. Board member Eric Paul Brandt was one of the volunteers. He says they delivered approximately $5,000 Canadian to the hospital to help repair plumbing and kitchen facilities. Without running water, hospital staff are unable to provide meals for patients. All food must be delivered to the hospital by relatives and friends.

In November 2010, I visited the hospital and was given a tour by Dr. Simon Osei Frimpong, the medical director and sole physician. At tha time, he told me that the hospital was able to run a pipe to a recently created municipal water supply. However, when the water was hooked up the hospital flooded. The decrepit hospital plumbing dates from its construction and needs to be ripped out and replaced at a cost of approximately $20,000.

Recently in Edmonton, the Rhythm International Foundation published the second edition of Sun and Snow and held a launch party and silent auction in Edmonton to support its ongoing work at the Dixcove hospital in Ghana.

The group plans to send another group of volunteers to Ghana during the summer of 2012. And Rhythm International is branching out and taking on new projects. The group has connected with a school in another town in Ghana and hopes to build a library for the students there.