Why Ghana?
While Ghana has experienced unprecedented growth and development over the past few years (IFAD report; African Development Bank), the country still faces many challenges, especially when it comes to access to education.
In Ghana, 17% 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, 2018). Additionally, over 14% of the Ghanaian population is illiterate (UNESCO, 2018).
PoP works with over 150 communities in Ghana to ensure that students overcome these and other barriers to accessing quality education. Currently, PoP is impacting over 42,000 students in Ghana through School Builds, Teacher Support and WASH programming.
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 over 160 schools in the Volta Region and have also provided teacher training and educational programming to many PoP schools in the region.
TONGOR AHOR
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With a population of around 1,500, this farming community is located within the South Dayi district of Ghana. Tongor Ahor currently serves 192 students spread throughout six grades. The Ewe language is spoken here, and students are eagerly awaiting their new school, where each child will be inspired to reach his or her full potential and promise. |
The Carter Family’s Impact in Tongor Ahor
At PoP, we strive towards a world in which every child can experience and benefit from quality education. Currently, in Tongor Ahor students are learning in old pavilions with extremely poor infrastructure. The school currently has poorly placed wooden panels in replace of walls. The wooden panels act as insufficient dividers, allowing students to become easily distracted by the neighboring classroom. Additionally, the wooden panels are so sparsely placed, there are huge gaps between the roof and the walls allowing for students to be easily distracted and exposed to the environmental elements. This makes it extremely difficult for students to focus in the classroom and for teachers to effectively teach.
These conditions pose a hazard to student safety and well-being and were detrimental to their everyday learning experience. We believe that a quality learning environment is critical to increasing student attendance, engagement and overall literacy outcomes.
A school build is only the start of a transformative education experience, and we are excited to get going. We broke ground in early July 2019 and expect to complete the structure in March 2020.
In the coming months, PoP will be partnering with the Tongor Ahor community to build a new three-unit classroom block! The community is devoted to providing a valuable education to its students, and will contribute 20 percent of the resources and labor required for construction.
We establish partnerships with communities who are deeply committed to their children’s education. The support of the Tongor Ahor community ensures the sustainability of the school that it will remain a quality learning environment for generations to come.
Upon completion we will come together to inaugurate the new school and celebrate the extraordinary learning that will take place there!