You’re Making a Difference Here
GHANA
Ghana was, until very recently, one of the poorest countries in the world. Over the past few years, the nation has experienced unprecedented growth and development (IFAD report; African Development Bank). Although the lives of Ghanaians have improved greatly, the country still faces many challenges, especially in the education sector.
In Ghana, 18% of primary school age children are not enrolled in school and of those who are in school, 28% will drop out before completing primary school (UNESCO, 2012). Additionally, over 28% of the Ghanaian population is illiterate and out of all the current primary school classrooms, the government estimates that almost a quarter need repairs (World Bank, 2014; USAID, 2009).
PoP works with 122 communities in Ghana to ensure that students overcome these and other barriers to accessing a quality education. To date, PoP has impacted over 24,000 students in Ghana.
VOLTA REGION
The Volta Region is located in southeastern Ghana, to the west of the Republic of Togo and just east of Lake Volta. In many of our partner communities in the region, PoP couples school builds with literacy programming in order to create sustainable change.
To date, we’ve built 125 schools in the Volta region and will continue to scale our teacher training and educational programming across PoP schools in the region.
Before a PoP School Build
Previously, preprimary and primary school students of Adaklu Kpetsu didn’t have access to quality classroom spaces. Kindergarten and first grade students had no classrooms and instead were taught under shaded areas outside in the community. The constant exposure to the outside elements created a distracting environment for the students. Additionally, the older students attended class inside an unfinished pavilion; the absence of doors, lack of formal flooring and exposure to the environment was not conducive to student productivity. These previous conditions posed a hazard to student safety and wellbeing, as well as to engagement and learning. Furthermore, before these formal learning structures were built, many students chose to stay home, leading to irregular student attendance.
Your Impact with the New PoP School
Through your support, PoP was able to partner with the Adaklu Kpetsu community to build an eight-classroom school. The Adaklu Kpetsu build broke ground at the end of January and is now completed, thanks in large part to the involvement of the community. The students, parents, teachers and Adaklu Kpetsu community remained engaged throughout the build process, contributing at least 20% of the labor and materials required for construction. We completed construction in September 2017, and inaugurated the school shortly thereafter. The community is enthusiastic knowing that their students now have access to a higher quality learning environment.