Early Education & School Development in Ghana

Thanks for your ongoing support for our Education program.  Your wonderful donations mean we can access valuable resources to enhance learning programs. Education comes in many forms, let's take a look at the range of educational experiences we've facilitated in the past quarter.

Creating positive and stimulating environments is part of our education program. We painted some educational murals on schools.  The aim is to make the learning environment brighter and more stimulating but also can be a resource students can use as part of their learning. For example children in their early years of learning now have a shape wall to refer to when learning about shapes in their maths program. Well done to the artistic project team for their work and thanks to our donors for making it possible.

Education of young children includes supporting with age appropriate experiences.  Basic skills developed in the early years can be built upon in the future years of learning. This is not only numbers, alphabet and reading, but also skills such as working in groups, socialising, and creative activities.  Of course physical skils too, whether large motor such as dance or fine motor such as writing are all important aspects of learning.  Our project works with teachers to support school learning programs and support a breadth of learning experiences for students.

We also support with one to one and small group learning support. This targetted support can help learners consolidate skills which can be built upon in later years.  Often if basic skills are missed, children strugle with learning as they get older.  Focussed support can ensure students have a solid foundation for their learning.  It is also an avenue to extend learners who have a high level of understanding and can be extended in their learning.

Our educational workshops also cover well being topics. Education programs have helped build awareness on emotional health and wellbeing with a focus on developing coping mechanisms. Skills from these workshops can be applied in a range of situations and are important life skills for sudents. Building skills such as self awareness and resilience can support students throughout their learning journey.

One of the fun events in the past few months was a fashion show. Students learned tips on dressing well with little or no money, learning how to alter clothes or create new uses from old items. The session was so much fun and there may be some future fashion designers in the class! The culminating fashion show was a highlight and goes to show that education can take many forms-not always just in a classroom.

Another educational focus was on World Menstrual Hygiene Day 388 students across six schools participated in talks on Menstrual hygiene. Focussed programs like this provide consistent information to a wide range of learners.  To support the learning program we also provided sanitary supplies for the students. 

First Aid training is another aspect of our education programs.  We have trained teachers at our partner school and done updates on their skills. These skills are helpful not only in their teaching roles but also as community and family members. 

Education includes many topics and focuses and through this project we continue to support learning programs in a range of ways. We focus on young children in their formative years, older students as they consolidate their foundational learning and across the community as we seek to address identified needs such as First Aid, well being and menstrual health.  

We thank you for your ongoing support and look forward to providing our next update.

Thank you for your continued support for our project.  Your contributions allow us to support projects with our partner and make a genuine difference to the education, safety and welfare of students.  

Over the last quarter, our team in Ghana has continued to respond to some of the most urgent needs of our local partner community schools. In the more challenging global economy we see today, in a post-pandemic era, we find our work increasingly focused on issues related to the welfare and safety systems that allow children to access education at our partner schools safely and effectively.

Late in 2022, one of our partner schools sadly had their school toilet block collapse - luckily no one was injured, but clearly a school with 200 early-years students being left with no toilet or sanitation facilities was a crisis. We reacted immediately to work with our partners and participants to fund, design and build a new, much better equipped, and more suitable toilet and sanitation block at the school.

Construction has been ongoing for several months now and the final touches will be made over the coming weeks… for 4 months children at the school have had to relieve themselves in the bushes in the corner of the school playing field. Clearly this is unsafe and unsanitary and required the most timely response from our team.

As of today, a new block with 3x as many urinals/cisterns and gender-specific areas is in place, built to the highest standards, with clean water supply and appropriate waste water disposal.This is not simply a ‘like-for-like’ replacement, but a markedly improved and safer solution.

With your help, we launched this campaign to raise funds on - not-so-coincidentally - World Toilet Day (on November 19th 2022). Our #toiletforall campaign to fundraise for the building of the facility in Kokrobite has been highly effective.

With donations and support, and working with our partner who has contributed towards the costs as well, we are very close to completition. In the next few weeks we expect the toilet block to be finished, open and available to the students.

This is a remarkable accomplishment and we are incredibly grateful to all those who contributed, with special thanks to Zenobia Beli and Julia Lakas, who went above and beyond to promote personal donations to this cause. And there is more to come on this story/project so watch this space and please continue to support!