Providing School Supplies to 100 Children in Ghana

My name is Akira Kondo, and I am the Ghana Project Manager for ACE. Thank you so very much for supporting our efforts to end child exploitation in the world.

ACE has been implementing the "Smile Ghana Project" to eliminate child labour in Brong-Ahafo, Asunafo-South District since February 2018.  In these two villages, the villagers themselves have been trying hard to improve the educational environment for their children. However, there are still many challenges ahead of them.

One of the biggest challenges in the current situation is how to provide school lunches to children. It was originally planned to receive a subsidy from the local government to cover the cost, but the subsidy has not been provided since October 2018, and the schools haven’t been able to secure other sources of funding, and so have not been able to provide lunches to children for a while.

Because school lunch hasn't been provided, and most parents cannot afford to prepare meals for their children to bring to school, some children go hungry at lunchtime and this undermines their health, well-being, and education. Not being able to concentrate on their studies, some of them stopped coming to school.  We discussed how to solve this issue and what measures may be taken with the school operation committee and the PTA to raise money from parents and villagers, but so far, current efforts have not proven effective in raising or allocating the necessary funds.

So representatives of the Village Council, the School Committee, and the Community Child Protection Committee  (CCPC) decided to go directly to the county office and petition the county governor to provide a subsidy. The governor, who heard the plight, immediately contacted the Education Bureau staff and instructed them to take measures.  It is going to take a little while to get the subsidy, but it is on its way.

In the past, people in the villages were not so eager to take their own actions in such matters. However, they have now learned the importance of education and children's rights through our project, and have started to take initiative by themselves, which led to their taking the step of going to the county governor directly.  We are so proud of the people in the villages, and their growing sense of empowerment and self-determination to improve the lives of children! 

We will continue to work with people of the village in solidarity, to provide a better educational environment for all the children who live there.

Thank you so much for your continued support! Any further support that you can give for the furtherance of this project will be much appreciated.