New school and new hopes

The photo shows the school we’ve just built for the little farming village of Esereso and the homemade structure that served as a school before.
When the Chief first learned that we were offering to build a school, he made a long speech. He said that now he wished he was a child again. His generation were living in poverty because they never went to school. Things would be so much better for today’s children, he said. The assemblyman wept.
The school will accommodate 120 children who are not yet old enough to walk the 6km to school at Kwamang, and 6km back. Without it, young children are already far behind with their school work before they apply to Kwamang, and the school there will not accept them.

New water supply

This week, a geophysics team visited the villages of Timber Nkwanta, Asarenkwanta and Nyankomam. They managed to locate good places to drill for water in each village, but the question remains as to whether the water is too deep. If not, all three villages will have their own boreholes in a week or two.
The man in the photo is the chief of Asare Nkwanta, who stayed with the drillers all day.

 

A pump test for enough water

Lock-down has been lifted in Ghana, not least because of so many people need to go to their farms if they are to eat.  That aside, Ghana seems to have got off lightly from Covid19, with under 100 deaths – though so many people are innumerate that it’s hard to have confidence in the figures.

Earlier this week Ashanti Development organised a communal meeting at Nyinampong where, as shown in the photos, everyone observed social distancing.  We explained we needed to do a pump test on their borehole to see if there was enough water in it to allow us to mechanise.  The pump test was agreed and carried out, and everyone was overjoyed to find the borehole had more than enough water to justify mechanisation.

Gratefulness!

We’ve just bought the surgical equipment shown in the photo for Mampong Maternity Hospital, who are telling us how grateful they are.  In fact we did nothing but buy the equipment and we’re very grateful to the Christadelphians who donated the money in the first place.

For some time now, we’ve been asking for donations to renovate and re-equip the hospital.  In view of coronavirus, this now seems a particularly good idea.

Hygiene training!

The village of Nkwanta has just been asked whether they would like household latrines and hygiene training – and they jumped at the chance.  The funding has been donated in memory of one of our three founders, David Williamson, who first explained to us why it was so important for communities to have these.

Accommodation for the teachers!

Asasebonsu is a remote village of settlers, who’ve recently walked south from the Sahara to escape the effects of climate change.  The village has a school, but the teachers have to sleep in their classrooms and only untrained people apply.

We’re building teachers’ accommodation – three bedrooms, two latrines and a bathroom – and hoping that trained teachers will queue up for jobs in Asasebonsu when the building’s finished.

Climate Change!!

Agado, our beekeeper has 18 hives and set up 26 more in the villages where we work. He visited today to say 3 hives had been destroyed by wild fire and honey would be sparse this year since the land is so dry. Climate change affects everything here and makes survival harder.

Thanking you!

Thanks to all the volunteers, friends and donors who came to our networking meeting yesterday, and thanks to Softwire, the computer programmers, for hosting us. 

A School For Esereso

We should be well into the dry season in Ashanti, but it’s been raining solidly for several months. Climate change means that it’s very hard to predict the seasons, but at last it looks as if the weather’s changing and we can start outdoor work again. The photos are of Esereso community, when Nicholas (left, in pale blue) is telling them that we’re going to build a village school to replace the one they built themselves, which blew away in a storm.
Esereso is a settler community. The people came south when it became impossible to sustain life around the Sahara. Climate change has already turned their lives upside down, so we’re doing our best to put it right way up again.

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