You’re Making a Difference Here
WHY 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
The students of Oseikrom, Ghana were previously taught in aging provisional structures that served as classrooms. Students in kindergarten through 6th grade had no formal classroom structures and instead attended class under makeshift constructions. Previously, the structures had dirt floors and rusted corrugated metals roofs, supported by flimsy wooden poles and unfinished brick walls. The previous building was incomplete and constantly exposed students to distractions of the outside environment. These conditions posed a hazard to student safety and well-being, as well as engagement and learning.
Your Impact with a New PoP School
Through your support, PoP was able to partner with the Oseikrom community to complete work on a six-classroom build, which will provide the students and teachers at Oseikrom D.A. Primary School with formal classrooms for engaged and effective learning. The Oseikrom build broke ground at the beginning of April and was completed in February, thanks in large part to the involvement and dedication of the community, who contributed up to 20% of the labor and materials necessary to complete the build. The community is enthusiastic knowing that their students now have access to a higher quality learning environment.