WomensTrust

WomensTrust Builds Primary School Addition in Pokuase Village, Ghana, With Two New Classrooms for Local Children

Construction of the new building

WILMOT, N.H., Oct. 2, 2009 – When school began in August in one of the poorest areas of Pokuase Village in Ghana, West Africa, children who once attended class outside under a tree were welcomed into two brand new classrooms. The new addition for the overcrowded Nii Otto Kwame Primary School was completed this summer through fund-raising and volunteer efforts coordinated by WomensTrust, a Wilmot, New Hampshire-based non-profit organization that seeks to empower women and girls through microenterprise, education, and healthcare.

Sign at the roadside

WomensTrust, which has operated with a mission in Pokuase since its founding in 2003, broke ground for the school addition on June 18, completing construction on Aug. 17, on budget and in time for students’ return after their summer break. WomensTrust founder Dana Dakin, who travels to Ghana each year to assess the needs of the village’s women and girls, had been speaking with the school’s principal, Felicia, for several years about the need for a new building.

Previous classroom site due to overcrowding

“This school lies in an area of town that serves the poorest of the poor families, where many of the students’ parents eke out a living at the quarry by breaking rock for cement-making,” says Dakin. “As the school became more and more crowded, some classes were moved outside and had to be cancelled whenever it rained.”

Breaking ground at Nii Otto Kwame with Vahan, Isaac, Kristen, Felicia, and Samuel

 Through WomensTrust, Dakin began soliciting donations in the United States for the school project, raising $19,590 in private donations in 2008 and 2009 from three individual donors. She also secured volunteer assistance from retired contractor Vahan Sarkisian, a New London, N.H., resident, who traveled to Pokuase in June to work with a local contractor Isaac Dodoo and construction manager Samuel Adjeteh to negotiate a contract and assemble the materials for the building’s construction.

Vahan and Felicia, the school principal, reviewing the contract

Sarkisian, who has worked as a residential and commercial contractor in various states for more than 50 years, has helped with building projects in Armenia, where his family is from, and for Habitat for Humanity while he was president of the Greater Boston Builder’s Association. While in Pokuase he had many conversations with Felicia, the school principal, about a new addition. “At first I think she didn’t believe me about the construction. I could tell that others had promised her the same thing many times and never delivered on their word,” he said.

The team

 Sarkisian found the people of Pokuase “very wonderful and friendly” and enthusiastic about the possibility of an expanded school. He enjoyed his role in overseeing the project, humbly suggesting that the workers bore the brunt of the hard work and the challenges of meeting the deadlines in time for the school year. “But the satisfaction came when they were able to get the job done,” he added.

Slab site of new building

In the school project, as in its other activities in Pokuase, WomensTrust created partnerships with local people to meet some of the community’s most immediate needs, but the ultimate goal is for the village to move toward self-sufficiency. “The school project is a perfect example,” Dakin says. “We started by building a two-room annex with a local team of construction workers, and we brought over an experienced contractor from our town in New Hampshire to go line-by-line on the bid, set dates for completion in phases, and release the money in line with e-mailed photos that proved contract fulfillment.”

Ongoing construction of the new building

 The villagers in Pokuase were amazed when the schoolrooms were completed on schedule and on budget. “We brought the resources to help them be successful. Now, in the next phase – refurbishment of the original decrepit four-room school building – the town is rallying to raise their own money and to set a schedule,” Dakin explains. “WomensTrust is working in the background and providing funds for the two most expensive items, but the balance of funding and labor is being contributed by the interested groups – a newly formed PTA, former students, the District Assembly, royal family and churches. We have challenged them to take progress into their own hands.”

Completed building

Education as One Leg of the Stool
Education in Ghana has traditionally focused on male children, and today, only about half of the girls enrolled in school continue beyond the eighth grade. Families often struggle to bear the costs of uniforms and books for all their children, and girls are often kept at home or leave school early to help with the cooking and caring for their younger siblings.

First Day of School at Nii Otto Kwame Primary

“Educating daughters is the key to climbing out of poverty. Research clearly shows that keeping girls in school improves all indicators – birth rates go down, family health improves, and the income stream goes up. In Ghana, families often likened giving girls equal access to school to planting your neighbor’s garden: You would never reap the benefit of your effort and expense,” Dakin says. “But attitudes are beginning to change. Ghanaians are beginning to see that when you educate a woman, the whole family benefits.”

Community Partnership

WomensTrust was founded with a focused mission to provide small loans to women entrepreneurs as a way of empowering them to find success and support their families. The organization quickly realized that without access to quality healthcare and education, these women and their families would continue to struggle. “Access to small amounts of capital to build viable businesses was just one leg of the stool for women in Ghana,” says Dakin. “The astonishingly high rates of maternal mortality and illness, and the low rates of literacy among women and girls, were the other two legs of the stool that had to be addressed in Pokuase for women and their families to transcend poverty and improve the quality of their lives.”

Officially handing over the keys

Today, WomensTrust currently sponsors two programs in Pokuase to provide girls with the impetus and resources to attend school and continue their education beyond primary school. A scholarship program, Keep-Girls-in-School, was established in September 2004, and the Ghana Literacy Program & Girls Exploration and Empowerment Club, known as the GEEC Club, began in fall 2007.

Students enjoying their new classroom space

The Keep-Girls-School-Program provides scholarships that enable some of Pokuase’s brightest girls to continue their education, covering costs such as school uniforms, textbooks, learning materials, and school fees. The program has expanded to assist students in all four of Pokuase's primary and junior secondary schools and three senior secondary schools. WomensTrust currently provides 128 of Pokuase’s brightest young women with support for their education.

The GEEC Club offers support and guidance to young teen girls in Pokuase as they move toward the time of transition from Junior Secondary School (JSS) to Senior Secondary School (SSS). It’s a pivotal point in their lives, when girls in school often feel pressure to return home to help their families rather than continue their education. The GEEC Club’s interdisciplinary curriculum builds girls’ skills in science, math, literacy, leadership, social studies, and computer technology, widening the scope of possibilities for their future. Through the use of cooperative learning techniques, the club creates a learning community for teen girls and encourages them to continue their education, rather than leave school with limited skills and training and little hope of breaking out of poverty.

-Kimberly Swick Slover

About WomensTrust
WomensTrust (womenstrust.org) is a non-profit organization that empowers women and girls in the developing world through microcredit, healthcare, and education.