Books for the Children

We are very grateful to Steve Junker and Erin Rollins in Canada who have provided us with books for the children at our school in Kpilinyung. These are some pictures of the children after they have received their books.



It is not everyday that they get to receive a shiny new book. Their smiles say thank you.

They are also very serious now about learning. They realize that it is important for their future.

Here they are with their new books and their teacher.

More pictures of the children who are very excited when there is a digital camera around.



It is not everyday that they get to take a photo so sometimes they can be serious about it too.


The following are the children in the Village of Kpilinyung that are using these books:

abukari amira, alhassan bintu, iddrisu ayisha, neindow sikena, zakaria latifa, zakaria asana, zakaria asana, abdulaia anshiru, abdrahaman nudeen, alhassan shirazu, rauf hardi, ayuba issifu, mahamadu amena, abulai mohamen, ibrahim. faruku,seidu zakariya, yakubu wumpini

Home Grown Support, and the first Graduate!

Farming is a major way of life in Ghana. It counts for the livelihoods of over 70% of the population in Ghana's Northern Region. Dan's has a farm just outside of Kpuliying where his family has been growing groundnuts (peanuts in North America) corn and rice since he can remember. This year he is just growing groundnuts because there was not enough money to plant any other crops. His farm and his students keep Dan making the 11 mile journey on his bicycle every day - or two at most.

The roads out to the village and Dan's farm will become much more difficult to travel as the rainy season gets underway

Dan was able to sew 6 acres of his 8 acre plot through some the support of friends and family and the help of a friend with a tractor.

Soon this field will be green with the soil nutrient restoring effects of the groundnut plants.

A farm is not just a source of income, it's a way of life, and in Ghana, you can't help but consider the daily, labour intesive demands of the farm on the rest of every day life. School terms are scheduled to break accoring to the seasons when children will be needed most on the farm. Families invest in the future in one of the few secure things they have here - the farm. This can mean having to buy inputs for the farm before paying for children to go to school. It's a lot of work, and the challenges of droughts, floods, pests, a rainy season that is no longer predicatble, and market prices increasingly influenced by external forces mean that what you have left in the end may not be a lot. But it's what Dan and his school have got to sustain themselves.

Small groundnut seedlings can already be seen sprouting up on Dan's farm

and the pests can already be found ready to munch on their leafy shoots.

Quite encouraginly, the Quality of Life for the Girl Child programme is on-going despite not having significantly attained any external funding outside of individual friends and family. It was hoped by now that the school could have grown in terms of learning aids and capacity for more students, but happily it is celebrating its first graduate! Shara is around 17 years old and she has been attending the Quality of Life for the Girl Child programme for 1 1/2 years now. During this time, when other children were happy to be out of class, Shara could be found with her books determined to do her best and learn as much as she could well into the evening. The beginning of the May 2008 term marked Shara's enrolment into the public Junior High School. After meeting with her father and the headmistress of the school, Dan arranged for Shara to join the other children at the JHS level. Upon review of Shara's performance, the headmistress belives that Shara will be able to pass more than one year of school this year, and join students closer to her age in the following year. JHS is free in Ghana, but Senior High School charges a tuition. This tuition can be covered by a scholarship in Ghana's Northern Region, but the families must pay for the first year of tuition before getting reimbursed by the government. This is often a difficult task, it seems there are always more challenges ahead.

Shara is the tallest girl in the centre of the photo with her classmates, she is now attending the first year of JHS in the public school.

Motivated by Shara's graduation, Dan is not worried about his programme, and the original aim and reason that were behind its inception are still compelling him to continue in his work. Progress will be made, and for the girls and boys enrolled that means more than a yearly report, that means opportunity.

Dr. Agrey, a Ghanaian Scholar in social studies, stated that before any country can meet its development agenda, that country must channel its resources, both human and materila, towards developing the girl-child. There are many studies which support this, but it is easy to see the central role that the matron of the home plays here, and to see the undeniable influence that she plays on the next generation. It is out of this logic that comes one of the greatest things we can do for all children is educating their future mothers. Thus the girl child is a major focus of the project, but the program goes beyond this and aims to reach vulnerable children who struggle to attain 3 daily meals.

With this belief, the management under the chairmanship of Dan, is appealing to benevolent organizations and other philantropic bodies to help him sew the seeds of knowledge in the students of Kpuliying.

School sessions during the holidays

Over the holidays, children around the world took a break from school and celebrated various religious and government supported holidays. For the children in Kpuliying community, their holidays were spent catching up to those children more fortunate than them. The children of Kpuliying are not so fortunate, getting them in school requires overcoming the financial barriers as well as the incentives their parents have to keep them out of school and have them help out at home and on the farm.

Children washing clothes -
a daily task usually assigned to the younger girls in the household.
A small girl carries water to her home -
another task that is usually divvied up to young girls.

Once the children of Kpuliying are able to get to school, there still remains the challenge of receiving quality education. Teachers in rural areas have little incentives to show up to class regularly and to ensure their students learn and progress. Most teachers come from urban areas and are less than pleased with a rural post that means less amenities such as accommodations, electricity, water, and school buildings. This, along with the feeling of being an outsider in the community affects teacher motivation and leads to disappointed children (http://www.newsfromafrica.org/newsfromafrica/articles/art_848.html)

Over the holidays, Dan was busy taking advantage of the school break. He was able to coordinate a team of skilled and committed individuals to start offering opportunities for the children of Kpuliying to not only get into school but to receive quality education. He organized 25 children (10 females, 15 males) to start attending school over the holidays. The building used was graciously opened up to Dan by the community pastor and other community leaders. Two teachers volunteered to put their college education to use. Books were provided by the 'School For Life' which has similar goals to Dan (http://www.ghanavenskabsgrupperne.dk/index.php?id=26).

School Book written in local language (Dagbani)

Pastor Danaa - one of the amazing people supporting this program.

The aim of the program was to give the children a sort of sneak peek into what school is all about. Most children really enjoyed the experience and many took their studies seriously. The teachers have been quite impressed with the students' performance and are surprised at how some have excelled and progressed through the material. With enthusiasm from both teachers and students, the training is still on-going, with a meodified class schedule to accommodate for the resumed regular classes.

Moses - one of the two volunteer teachers hard at work.

The children, although they may not look excited (it's Ghana culture to look serious for photos), they are both serious and proud for the opportunity to attend school.

Next, Dan says he's planning to work with the paid teachers of the school and see if he can't help encourage them to do a better job. Well keep you posted on this next effort.

Why Girl Child Education?

The United Nations states “Education is a basic human right, vital to personal and societal development and well being. All children deserve a quality education founded on a rights-based approach and rooted in the concept of gender equality. A rights-based approach to education will address inequalities in our societies that are deep-rooted and often gender-based. Such inequalities exclude millions of children, particularly girls, from school or condemn them to educational experiences of very poor quality.

Education enhances lives. It ends generational cycles of poverty and disease and provides the means for sustainable development. A quality basic education will better equip girls and boys with knowledge and skills needed to adopt healthy lifestyles, to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and to take an active role in social, economic and political decision-making as they transition to adolescence and adulthood. As educated adults, they are more likely to have fewer children, to be informed about appropriate child-rearing practices, and to ensure their children start school on time and are ready to learn.” (http://www.unicef.org/girlseducation/index.php)

Empty school on a Sunday morning. This school was built by World Vision.

For Daniel, the reason for girl child education begins in his home.

“Suraya and Amama are girls in their early teens who live and work in my home. Everyday they sweep the compound, fetch water and basically do everything in the house. I was not happy with this, when I saw them and I would get worried about their future. I would ask myself: “How will their life end up if they are not in school?” Even though the government has made primary school education free, families like mine still find it difficult to send all their children to school due to the additional cost of books and uniforms combined with the time taken away from household chores.

Suraya sweeps the compound daily.

It was definitely not for lack of interest that these two teenage girls had not been educated. Every night they would take the boys books and try to read and write. Sometimes the other children who were privileged to attend school would laugh at the sight of a 16 year old girl trying to write simple sentences on the wall.

So when a friend of mine offered to provide the money for Suraya to attend school both Suraya and I were overjoyed. A few months ago Suraya made the brave journey that most of us can’t remember – she had her first day at school. Since then she has been the most studious student of all the children in my house. She no longer borrows books and struggles to extract any amount of knowledge from them, each night you can find her seriously studying and learning quickly too! I expect that she will advance by more than one grade next year.

Suraya studiously studying her science homework - parts of a plant.

Just recently Amama expressed interest in attending school. Seeing the positive results of sending Suraya, I was able to gather enough money to also support Amama. She will start attending classes in January.”

While UNICEF has the theory correct on girl child education, through community advocacy and leading by example Daniel is working hard to put the theory in action.

Introduction to a big dream

"My goal is to get girl children back to school. I look through the windows of school buildings and for every 100 children I see only a few girls. I pass by people's homes and see girls hard at work - carrying water, cleaning and cooking but missing out on an opportunity for education." - Dan, Project Leader

In the past, the development sector has had programs to encourage girl children to go to school. These programs have not been as successful as hoped. So why will the dream we have for this project be realized? This intervention is different because it is designed and implemented from the ground. There is no master project full of lofty impact indicators, workshops that won't be implemented by development staff, and no donor driven agenda. This project is simply a big dream from a community leader who intends to see it through.

The purpose of this blog is to inform and engage you in this dream.

Below is a short anecdote that describe the initial steps taken by Daniel along the path to achieving quality of life for girl children.

"We visited about 4 villages in order to educate people about female child labor and education. In fact, almost everybody in the villages appreciated our visit and were happy to learn about this voluntary program.

We were able to get some people in each village to join our quest as volunteers to also mobilize or assemble the people whenever we visit the village in the future. By going around the villages we realized that there are plenty of orphans and disabled children who need to go back to school.

The villages we visited are called: Kpuliyin, Bugu, Tumo Naayilli, and Duriyo Pkalgu When we visied Kpulyin, we meet with the cheif, elders, as well as the religious leaders, the pastor and cheif Imaam. The pastor explained that he had attended numerous workshops on educating girl children but had not been able to implement the ideas he obtained in the workshops. His work keeps him busy and due to his age, he was not able to act on things. He appreciated the ideas that I brought and was happy to see that I was young and committed to the project.

The community leaders expressed that they were ready to support my project. I went home that day feeling happy with the steps I have taken."

Dan stands proud in front of the community school. He dreams of passing by this school and seeing more girls.