You Are 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 107 communities in Ghana to ensure that students overcome these and other barriers to accessing a quality education. To date, PoP has impacted over 190,000 lives 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 98 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, there was not enough classroom space to accommodate the number of students in the Poase community. The primary school students attended class in two 3-unit block classrooms. And the kindergarten students, as a result of the lack of formal classroom space, attended class in the nearby chapel when they could; the teachers used a curtain to divide the space into two provisional classrooms for their students. In addition, both the primary and kindergarten classrooms had very limited to no furniture. Our team often found the students studying and writing on floors. Overall the lack of available classroom spaces, paired with the absence of necessary furniture hindered student engagement and learning.
Your Impact with a New PoP School
Through your support PoP was able to partner with the Poase community to build a brand new three-classroom block for its kindergarten classes. The Poase build broke ground in late August and progressed well, thanks in large part to the active engagement and continued dedication of the community to provide 20% of the labor and resources necessary to complete the build. Now all students at Poase Cement Primary School have access to formal classroom spaces, which will create a more conducive learning environment. We completed construction in May of 2017, and inaugurated the school shortly thereafter. The community is enthusiastic knowing that their students will soon have access to a higher quality learning environment.
