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 have also provided our teacher training and educational programming to many PoP schools in the region.
Before a PoP School Build
Previously, kindergarten and primary school students of Fiahor were taught in provisional classroom structures. These preexisting classrooms were each shared by two grades of students. Furthermore, there were only three provisional classrooms for the 109 students that currently attend Fiahor M.A. Primary School. As a result, kindergarten students attended class in a rented, off-campus space, while the primary students were taught in small, dark preexisting structures. The school building showed severe signs of decay, evidenced by cracks along its interior cement walls, broken wooden shutters and doors, and uneven corrugated tin roofing. These conditions were posing a hazard to student safety and wellbeing, as well as creating an unfavorable environment for productive student learning.
Your Impact with a New PoP School
Through your support PoP was able to partner with the Fiahor community to build a three-classroom school. The Fiahor build broke ground in the beginning of March and is now complete. The community remained actively engaged in the process and was committed to contributing up to 20% of the labor and materials required for construction. Your generosity made this new build possible for the students and teachers at Fiahor M.A. Primary School. The community is enthusiastic knowing that their students now have access to a higher quality learning environment.