Educate 200 poor children in rural Ghana

In the forth quarter of 2019, the people of Bolni received an exciting news of the inclusion of Bolni Primary School into the Ghana School Feeding Programme. This brought a huge sigh of relieve to parents and teachers who had continuously advocated for this support through the support of GG. 

GG has over the past 3 years strengthened its intervention in the Bolni Cluster of Communities to improve education performance of the Bolni Primary School through the donations received from GlobalGiving. This was in response to the poor performance of pupils due to inability of parents to provide basic school items for their wards. The situation resulted in poor enrollment and high dropout rates. The community had earlier appealed to Government through the District Education Department to introduce school feeding programme in the community as a way of boosting enrollment and retention of pupils. However, this was not successful because the school did not meet the requirements in terms of performance and minimum enrollment figures.

Fortunately, after 3 years of GG’s intervention, the community was granted the school feeding program in 2019 because the school progressively improved its management and teaching and learning processes. Children had shown great commitment to stay in school and parents had shown high interest in supporting their children’s education. Some parents indicate they have developed the habit of buying school uniforms because it is now embarrassing to say they cannot afford anything after GG had done so much for their children. “I managed to buy her a new uniform because she got all the other things from the support of GG. I just had to also try my best as a parent else she will consider me irresponsible” said Kitindo’s father.

Aside these, the head teacher of the school stated that “the donations from GG has helped increase enrollment from 200 to 300 pupils within the past 2 years. This is part of the reasons why the Ghana Education Service has selected the school to pilot the feeding program for this academic term. We pray we are confirmed afterwards”.

The people of Bolni are very grateful to GlobalGiving for contributing significantly to achieve this success. With your kind donations, GG will continue to support many more pupils, the teachers and even mothers who will serve as cooks for the School Feeding Programme so that it will be sustained by Government. 

In the previous quarter, Grameen Ghana promised to provide dual desk furniture to Bolni D/A Primary School through your kind support. This followed our experience of a pathetic situation in which pupils of the school sat on bare floor and benches for lessons and exams. Although this was not part of the planned support for the period, we found it very necessary to solicit support to provide the school with comfortable furniture to promote effective teaching and learning.

Thanks to your generous support, GG has been able to provide 15 Dual Desk Furniture to the Upper Primary of Bolni D/A Primary School in September 2019. This was so much appreciated by the School Management Committee (SMC), the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) who received the donation on behalf of the school. The head teacher of the school also indicated that the donation has brought a relief to the school and couldn’t have come at any better time than now.

The pupils in the upper primary couldn’t hide their joy and indicated that the presence of the furniture is a dream come true as it will give them comfort in learning and writing of exams. One of the primary six girls said, “now I will not carry our bench from the house again to school for siting”. Another pupil, Tamo-iliin, said “as for me, this is the first time I am sitting on a good chair to learn since I came to this school”.

The pupils, teachers and parents of Bolni are so much enthused and thankful to you for your kind donation and to GlobalGiving and Grameen Ghana for making it possible for them to get this support. In the coming quarter, Grameen Ghana will continue to monitor to ensure that the furniture really creates the enabling environment for teaching and learning. The people of Bolni and Grameen Ghana continue to appeal for more support to enable other classes obtain dual desk furniture to improve teaching and learning.

Examination is a way of assessing level of improvement in the academic lives of pupils at a particular time. For this reason, Bolni D/A Primary School just as others continuous to conduct examination at the end of every term to ascertain whether the pupils actually grasp whatever is taught in the school. Though very important, teachers of Bolni D/A Primary School rather have to go through very stringent process in trying to read and understand what the pupils write. The children often had very eligible handwriting that affects the marking of their papers due to the difficulty in reading by their teachers in the past.

Speaking with some of the teachers, (Mr. Osman –the head teacher) intimated that the pupils have picked up very quick in reading particularly, but writing clearly has remained a challenged. “We could not give them their end of term exams papers previously on time because we spent a lot of time to mark the scripts due to the bad handwriting by majority of them” said Mr. Osman.

The head teacher was glad that the situation has improved in the just ended terminal exams with the writing material provided by Grameen Ghana and its partners, teachers will now spend less time in marking scripts. Wasaak, one of the primary 5 pupils who was identified to have the most legible handwriting said he has been practicing with the exercise books and pencils he received under the GlobalGiving support.

The major challenge for the school now, which needs urgent attention, is the inadequate furniture for effective teaching and learning. It was observed by the Grameen Ghana team that pupils had to sit and write exams on benches. The head teacher made a passionate appeal to the Grameen staff to assist in whichever way possible, in procuring some furniture for the school.

Grameen Ghana with your kind donations, would be considering supporting the school with appropriate dual desk that will provide some comfort for the pupils.

In this quarter, GG continued it’s support for reading competition among children in Bolni Primary School. The organization provided award schemes and encouraged participation of parents to witness the performance of their children. The result of the competitions in this quarter was astonishing. In a school where majority of the pupils could not read simple sentences correctly prior to GG’s intervention, more than 50% of them could read perfectly in the recent public reading competition in first quarter 2019. It was a colorful event where the pupils displayed their reading skills. In the end GG awarded the top 10 best readers with solar lamps to promote continuous reading at home since there is no electricity in the community. 

Bitignan, a contestant, read so eloquently and so fast than one could imagine. He is a primary six (6) pupil and indicated that he has read all the story books received from Grameen Ghana through the Global Giving project. “I have finished reading all my story books and now reading one that belongs to my sister” said Bitignan. He was ready to make use of the solar reading lamp so that his dream of becoming a medical doctor is realized. Bitignan proved to be the best in the school and won the admiration of all the audience in the presence of the Global Giving Field Traveler. “I would be very happy to see my daughter take part in the next competition” said a parent. 

In the coming quarter, GG will intensify field monitoring to ensure that the pupils benefit from the solar lamps donated to them. GG will work to ensure that more than 80% of the pupils are able to read by the close of the year. In view of this, your donation will help GG procure more reading materials, solar lamps to match up with the growing interest of reading among the pupils. 

The pupils, teachers and parents are so grateful to GlobalGiving and called for more support to enable majority of the children to participate in the next reading competition. 

In the last quarter of 2018, the teachers in Bolni Primary School introduced reading competition among children to help sustain their reading habits. Thanks to the support from GG, the presence of reading materials coupled with the excitements in the reading competition has helped to keep most of the children in class to rehearse their reading skills in the absence of teachers.

According to Mr. Adjei, the head teacher of the school, “I am short of words to describe how the reading materials from GG has positively impacted the school, especially retention in class. The gesture by GG has reduced the burden of chasing after pupils most especially the very little ones just to remain in their classrooms to learn. Now they sit and do the reading by themselves. With great excitement, Mr. Adje, added “the reading competitions organized between boys and girls in the upper primary is greatly helping to sustain good reading habits among the children”. With more reading materials and continuous monitoring by GG, the reading competition can extend to all the classes in the school. 

In the next quarter, GG shall strengthen the reading competitions through award schemes and motivational talks in order to sustain the reading habits among the children. We passionately appeal to you to continue donating to our project so as to help all these poor children stay and complete school. The teachers, pupils, and parents in Bolni as well as Grameen Ghana say “Thank you for your wonderful donations”.