James Riggs Final Update

So the start of the second year, and all is busier than ever. George Godson recently left Ghana and the EDP team after sterling work out here, having single-handedly built up the pineapple juice project, to which we shall return a little later, from inception to completion as a fully functioning, money-making enterprise helping to raise vital funds for the school. It is safe to say that this side of the project would not be where it is today without him, and all of EDP would like to thank him for his efforts. In his place however, we have three more volunteers. Rachel Schmieder is the new Enterprise Manager, carrying on where George left off, and will be ably assisted by Kiran Sahib. On the school side of things, Alastair Littleton, a teaching assistant from the Winton School in Andover, has come out until Christmas with the simple remit of 'improving the school'. We are all very grateful for the time and effort of the new volunteers, who really are helping to shape the future of the school with their continued hard work.

By the time I got back from my summer holiday in late September the 'Phase II' building had been finished and was looking great. This new building would be home to the students moving into the second year, and they came out in force to help paint it a few days before re-opening. With perhaps a little more enthusiasm than artistic flair they spent most of their time laughing, getting covered in green emulsion and generally enjoying being back at school after the long break. The end result was great, though, and everyone was really excited to move into their new home, with pride of place being given to the fantastic mural, drawn up by the Winton students who paid us a visit over the summer. When the painting was all done and dusted, the students here even had the time and energy to knock-up a little study area, tucked away in the cooling shade of the Acacia trees.

Those of you with good memories may recall the trouble we had last year with the publication of the National Junior High School Grades. The delay pushed back the opening of Senior Schools the country over as they waited to verify that students had indeed matched the criteria for attending. Well the same thing happened, though to a lesser degree, this year. So after a slight delay, by mid October, we were ready to welcome the new first year students. We now have two more classes, of around sixty happy and enthusiastic young people, pushing the school total up to over one-hundred and fifty. A huge thank-you to everyone involved, from the UK governors, those who have visited, sponsored, donated or simply offered support and advice.

The school certainly is a great deal busier now with the two year groups, and as a result we have obviously had to increase the teacher allocation, too. We now have two teachers per subject, with an effective head of department [though this term and position does need some tweaking]. That is a total of sixteen teaching staff, including seven ‘interns' from Winneba University. Our always hard-working Deputy Headmaster, Seth Adjadotze, has managed to get our school registered with nearby Winneba University for their student placement scheme. The result is that, each year, we will get half a dozen newly graduated teachers working at our school as part of their university placements. The six that have just started are doing excellent work – young, enthusiastic and extremely dedicated. What's more the nature of contemporary teaching methodology in Ghana, which is thankfully moving away from the classic ROTE approach to involve much more student interaction in class, is fully embraced by these new teachers, as they are effectively straight out of study. Obviously we need to still rely, for the most part, on the senior staff to co-ordinate and set out the trajectory of the teaching, but the interns are proving to be hugely valuable to us and I'm very glad we have them. Seth has done a fantastic job getting us onto this scheme [not an easy task], especially as we are not a Ghana Education Service [GES], and the benefits in the years to come are going to be immense. The only drawback is that we must 'give them back' to the GES at the end of the year.

I feel that here I must mention Seth, though briefly, in a little more detail. Seth was one of the first people that we got in to help us with the project. An old friend of EDP and founder of the Awutu-Winton School, Peter Donkor, Seth has really grown into his role as 'Deputy Head' and is so intertwined with the school that it becomes almost impossible to imagine the place without him. With 20 years experience of teaching, a qualification in counselling, extensive gardening expertise and a constantly happy disposition, Seth has been dedicating more time and effort to the project than its possible to do justice to here. Loved by staff and students alike [the student’s impromptu comedy routine at the opening was the talk of the school], we genuinely would not have the success we have today without him. And though I will, of course, be very sad when I do eventually leave, I will rest assured that with Seth there, all will be an unqualified success.

Ok, now that you are up to date with the teaching side of things, let’s fill you in on the other half of this rapidly expanding project, the income generating agro-businesses. As I have said before, one of the aspects of this school I am most excited about is the focus on [current buzzword] sustainability. But perhaps the most fulfilling thing for me is to see the combination of the two, with the students starting to get involved with the micro-enterprises themselves. As I mentioned above, the pineapple juicing project is starting to really take off thanks to the hard work, energy and commitment of Rachel and Kiran. So, I shall now briefly hand you over to the latter with news of that and, just as excitingly, news of the first batch [almost] of Awutu Honey!

The decision to introduce an AbroFresh kiosk to the University of Winneba is proving to be a wise one. Through relentless promotion and advertisement the student population are pulling through! Not only are sales picking up at the kiosk, but it was only last week I walked through the university campus and heard ‘AbroFresh’ being excitedly shouted at me. I looked up to see some enthusiastic smiles and an unprecedented amount of frantic waving. I instinctively responded with some equally frantic waving, and a necessary ‘whooopy’!
The move has also played an instrumental role in the expansion of the agricultural business; our first wholesale event was for a student – organised event on the 11th November 2011. We provided a total of 35 gallons of pineapple juice- close to 160 Litres! We managed to get a fair bit of advertisement at the event; the lead singer of the headlining band appointed himself as ‘Abroman’ and militantly made regular announcements for us.
Concerning the bee project, we now have 3 hives which are colonised. Unfortunately we have had issues with ants and other mysterious Ghanaian critters in the hives, which consequently have resulted in the bees deserting some of the hives. However, the past week has been spent cleaning the hives and putting in place the necessary measures to keep all unwanted creatures out of them. Now armed with the knowledge of the proper maintenance of hives Elias, Rachel and I are confident the bee’s will return and we should have our first harvest by March 2012.
To encourage sustainable agricultural development amongst our students we have picked a few students who have shown a keen interest in the environment and agriculture to help with the bee project. Their enthusiasm was apparent in the first meeting when Elias was overcome by their immediate commitment and constant questions!

So, as you can see, it’s all hands to the pump with the enterprise projects and, after all the teams hard work over the last 10 months, we are really starting to see the benefits. Rachel and Kiran have been pulling out all the stops to ensure that no time is lost as we head into the hot season, when hopefully juice demand will be highest. I am hopeful that in the next instalment of this blog we will be able to bring news to you of just how these ago-ventures are having an actual effect on the financial stability of the school.

Leaving that to one side again, let’s concentrate once more on the school itself. Alastair has come over here on a relatively short [three month] trip, using his teaching background to help with the efficient running of the school and the lessons. He has been working alongside a few of the teachers and Seth to ensure that the lesson plans are being correctly drawn up and the syllabus adhered to. For the most part he has been happy with what he has seen, and been encouraged by the teachers displays. Not that we should rest on our laurels, as teaching standards are something that must be constantly assessed and, if possible, improved upon. As well as this, we have been throwing all sorts of things at Alistair to do, from getting curtains fitted, to serving juice, to making ID cards and organising an inventory of classroom stocks. All in all he has been running around with barely enough time to catch his breath. Though catch it he did for the inaugural staff VS students’ football game a few weeks ago. The game was played on the miniature five-a-side pitch a little beyond the school fence. However, this dusty and fairly sorry looking thing will soon be a thing of the past as we are extremely grateful for the very generous donation to enable us to buy 7 plots of land next to our own, which will enable us to build a full size football pitch – the only one in Awutu. The students are all getting very excited by the prospect. Now all they have to decide on is who will be the goalkeeper!

Well, that is almost it from Ghana, just one final thing to talk about. During a recent visit, David and Inez came with me to a visit at the Grace-Masak orphanage a little way down the road at Buduburam. There are thirty children or so, all under one roof, being looked after by two women who do a sterling job of keeping the kids clothed, bathed and fed to the best of their ability. The decision was made on this visit to help them out with new mattresses, light bulbs and a weekly supply of pineapple juice [as well as a donated football table]. They all now run out to greet our Friday morning delivery each week and scoff down the juice, and the chocolate bread that our wonderful cook, Agnes, bakes each morning for them.

OK, so you're all now completely bang up to date on how things are progressing, and I hope you will all agree that exciting times lay ahead for the school and the students. Who knows what our efforts now will bring in the future, just last week one of the students came up to me and said, 'James, when I am older I want to build a free school for needy children'. Maybe we started something?!

James Riggs, EDP Project Manager, Awutu, Ghana.

Report On The Official Opening Day: September 2011

The Official Opening on September 30th was a great success! We ended up getting around 300 people to the event, including all the local Chiefs and the MP, the Hon David Larbie, as well as the local District Chief Executive and a representative from the Ghana Education Service.

The pupils put on a number of very impressive displays – starting within the School choir (see gallery picture), and the mixed Cadets, who, despite having formed temporarily only two weeks earlier put on a most disciplined performance. We need to decide if we can justify the cost of the cadets going forward, and ditto the brass band and the local drama group who all kept going during the day, even during a torrential downpour!

We also had several of the pupils doing a local dance routine in traditional costumes - also on the Gallery – and the day ended with prize giving and speeches from a number of signatories, including deputy head Seth , and Founder Peter Donkor, followed by two very competitive football games by first the boys then, with arguably even more vigour, by the girls!

All of us present were very impressed with the high standard of performance by all the students, working with limited resources and time table and ably supported by a growing Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) which is reflecting the keen interest being shown by parents and the local community . It’s an exciting time for the school and we hope you can all feel part of this as it’s the support we are receiving at EDP that is making all of this happen!

It was also an opportunity for the charity to point out to the local community that the school was there for the long term with its mission aim to deliver, uniquely for the region, free secondary education at a high standard to the section of the local community who could least afford it and who would in fact be disenfranchised without the school (as are over 55% of secondary age pupils in all of Ghana as their families do not have the wherewithal to pay the GES fees.)

All of this took place, as you can see from the recent pictures posted onto the website, in front of the newly finished Phase 2 building which consists of three classrooms, an office for EDP staff, and a science lab (still to be fitted out, once the £4,000 funds required for this have been raised!). James Riggs is in now in the midst of the difficult process of selecting the fortunate 75 applicants who can be accepted for year 2. That will fill two of the three new classrooms, and we plan, for this year at least, to let the wonderful Agnes who feeds both staff and pupils at midday, to use the third classroom as a temporary Canteen until we can raise the funds (around £40,000) to build the canteen and admin unit which will also house a drama and art room; but that’s for the future.

Going forward in the short term we have plans in the pipeline to develop further the juice, apiary and fish farm enterprise projects, headed up by Rachel Schmieder who has been in Awutu since July preparing to take over from George Godson who has done such a great job since January this year. Thanks again George!

The juice business has been struggling recently and we are trying variations to make it work, focusing more on trying to sell in bulk to selected local vendors (we have also just launched the juices for sale at a discount in the school and early indications are encouraging.)

The local bee expert , Elias, visited Rachel last week and said he was most impressed with the start we have made in colonising our 10 hives- a picture has also been posted on the Gallery site and our plan is to start involving students and staff as the bees starts to get properly established over the next few months. Hopefully we will have our first, small, quantity of honey for sale sometime in the New Year!

Rachel now has Kiran, also from the UK, to assist her on the business development side and next year we are also hoping to start a trial Tilapia fish tank to see if it’s possible to farm these tropical fish for commercial ends in the region. This has been made possible thanks to a generous anonymous donation of £12,000 from a well wisher which has allowed the school to purchase the adjacent plots of land, sufficient for a full sized sports pitch with space left over to expand some more bee hives (well away from the players!) and the trial fish farm. Work should start soon on levelling the land once the legal paperwork has been completed.

James is also grateful to have a new assistant, Alastair Littleton, an ex-teacher from Winton in Andover. Alastair will be at the school until Christmas assisting in administering the curriculum , including the IT, as well as more mundane tasks that just need to be done, like sorting the remaining bicycles in the container for use by the new trainee teachers that Seth has done so well to obtain for us from the nearby teachers’ college.

Sadly James has decided to finish his contract by Christmas; although having done virtually two years in Awutu and seen the school emerge in the process we understand that James feels it’s time to move on and we will always be extremely grateful to him for all that he has achieved working with our small NGO. This means that EDP will be in the market place for a new Project Manager and his Assistant, come January, so if anyone knows of suitable candidates with experience in the field please ask them to get in touch with their CV’s!

So there we have it. The second year is under way, phase two is virtually there, the sports field is in hand and the business ventures are moving slowly forward. There is a sense of great activity and excitement whenever we visit the school these days and once again it’s all down to the wonderful support we are receiving from so many quarters. James is also in contact now with two other schools and so , especially now that Winton have sent their first team of students out to Awutu in July , the opportunity to develop the links between students of UK (who as we know in many instances just don’t realise the facilities they are so lucky to have!) and Awutu-Winton SHS is now well in hand.

David Lunan,
9th October 2011

End Of First Academic Year Report: July 2011

Hi all,

As James mentioned in his March blog the school has been progressing steadily over the course of 2011 and we are delighted to send this report out on the School’s first year, which finished last Thursday.

Generally the anticipated time table of events over the past few months has been kept to and 103 fired up students have just gone off on their mid-year break: we can’t call it ‘summer’ as we would in temperate climes as it’s effectively summer all year of course in Awutu - just the wet or dry season, and currently wet and humid. If anyone is interested in coming to visit - which both the EDP Team and School staff and pupils would welcome enormously- and wants to know the best time to come it’s probably at the start of the dry season in September/October or before the rainy season’s set and after the Harmattan dry season in December /January: ie February or March: certainly a good time to leave Europe!).

Plans are afoot to expand the school numbers to 175 by next term and James and his team are already starting the process of selection for the second year, although we will need to await the results of the Junior School (JSS) end of year exams which are published in September, before we can make the final choice; at the moment we have over 200 applicants for the 70 places available.

Many things continue at the school site, even though the school is now officially on holiday. We have had the first group visit from our UK twinned school, Winton in Andover, sponsored through Global Challenge, and as I write the group of eight pupils, ably supervised by Winton staff Jane and Sean, are busily engaged with helping the EDP team on a number of projects on site – including the painting and preparation of the 10 bee hives which represent the launch of the much spoken about Honey Project . EDP Enterprise Manager, George Godson, is poised ready with phials of pheromones, which for those of you, like me, with very little knowledge of bee behaviour, apparently are the catalyst to inspire the local bee population to come and do their thing in our hives! All very exciting, and we have recruited the services of local bee expert Elias who is advising George and his new EDP assistant, Rachel Schmieder, who arrived last week in Awutu.

At the same time the “juice project” that James referred to in his March blog continues steadily under the supervision of George and his team. We have several kiosks performing well and this is expected to create enough profit to fund a full time teacher for a year if it continues on its current path. The challenge facing George and Rachael now is to get as many other kiosks as the production line can cope with, all performing in the local markets. Our current performing one is in a place called Kasoa which is a busy local market about 8 km east of Awutu and we are trying to locate a couple more there.

The plan is also, thanks to George and local transport manger and Awutu resident Ebenezer Acquah who managed to source a reliable second hand minibus for the school (now beautifully branded up – see latest picture on the Gallery site!), to expand the location of Kiosks further afield, and the nearby Town of Winneba (“Windy Bay”) is now in our sights as it’s a busy market town with a substantial (hopefully thirsty!) student teacher population. Also at least four of whom we hope, thanks to help from Seth our deputy head who lobbied the college successfully for us earlier this year, will be coming to teach at Awutu-Winton as part of their training year. This represents a lower overhead for the charity but nevertheless a positive addition to the staff pool as we increase numbers of both students and staff with the launch of Phase Two.

The first part of Phase Two, which will now consist of 3 classrooms, a science lab and a separate office for EDP (see gallery for latest shots), has been under construction, supervised from UK By Martin Moore and on the ground by local engineering expert Baffour Osei, for the last few months. Eddie Quarshie, who met many EDP sponsors at the recent BBQ held earlier this month in Andover, has been the main contractor and he has worked closely with Baffour and James to get the building ready for the Winton team to go in this coming week and paint. Eddie is an enthusiastic local governor and his work for the school is gratefully appreciated by all at EDP. Our aim is to build the second part of Phase two, with a canteen, staff and Art rooms as soon as the funding is in place, hopefully by the second half of next year.

The number of sponsored children has also been steadily rising and we are all so grateful for this vital support. One of the sponsors, a good friend called Jonathan Miller came to visit Awutu with Inez and myself last February. Apart from sponsoring one of the girls and meeting her family, Jonathan gave valuable free legal advice to James and myself helping us to finalise the (rather complicated) registration of the land deeds for the school, and also helped us write the even more complicated Staff contracts. We are therefore very sorry to announce that Jonathan died earlier this month, a sad loss for his family and his wide circle of friends and colleagues, and the number of charities that he gave so much support to - and personally a very, very good friend and confidant. His passing will leave a big gap in many people’s lives.

In March Chris Stanton volunteered to come out to Awutu for 3 months and assisted James and the team in a number of areas, and in particular guided Okyere, the IT master. We are grateful to Chris and to his parents, Paul and Jackie, for their support. Some of you may have seen that Jackie is continuing to help EDP by organising an Auction of Promises for the Charity to be held in Abbotts Ann on November 12th when we hope to raise enough to pay for at least two full-time teachers for 2012.

We also have a number of other volunteers due to go out to the project in the ensuing months , starting with Kiran Sahib who is due to fly out in August having recently finished her degree at SOAS in International Development. She will be followed a month later by Alastair Littleton, currently a teacher at Winton Andover , who is going out to Awutu for up to a year to assist the school to develop an Adult Education department whilst at the same time expanding the links with Winton Andover, initiated by the Global Challenge team this month. EDP is grateful for all the support the volunteers are offering, and the assistance they are giving to James and Seth, as well as the board of Governors.

Lead by Eddie, and constantly supported by the school’s Founder, Peter Donkor, there are 'behind the scenes' negotiations going on in a number of areas and we hope to be able to make a very exciting announcement for the school shortly in this regard.

It is safe to say however that the Official Open day, scheduled for September 30th at the school should be an eventful one!

So once again, on behalf of the Trustees of EDP and the Board of Governors at Awutu-Winton, a big THANK YOU to everyone who has helped us to get this far. There is of course a very long journey ahead but, thanks to all of our supporters , we are now well on our way!

With best wishes,

David Lunan

Director, EDP Trust
135 Little Ann road, Andover, Hants
SP11 7NW
Uk Charity no : 1129398

George Godson (Business Development Manager) Update: July 2011

Hello all,

As we've now just started the second year it seems a good point to reflect on my time here at the Awutu-Winton school.

Having arrived way back in January, I remember being met at the airport by a smiling Seth, our headmaster, as well as Eddie, one of our Governors, and I'll admit that first night passed by in a blur of the senses in the oppressive Ghanaian heat, finding myself at the school the next day being introduced the children full of excitement and promise for the year to come.

For anyone who hasn't been to west Africa, and Ghana in particular, it is worth mentioning that it is the most friendly and welcoming of places, and one reason why the moniker 'gateway to Africa' is not at all unfounded. I was struck in that first week by the approachability and generosity of the local community in Awutu, who are clearly grateful for the opportunity the school has given them. So feeling right at home, and with the help of the locals, I was soon finding the best places to find a plate of Waakye or catch the footy on a Saturday afternoon.

As Enterprise Project Manager, my role has been primarily to build the pineapple juicing operation we have established here at the school, growing a business that will provide students with a valuable insight into real life business and accountancy, as well as generating vital revenue for the school's long term sustainability, and of course, important employment opportunities for the local community. Obviously, this is all in addition to the fact that the juice tastes great! And by giving our students the stuff, at a subsidised price, we will be giving them a valuable source of vitamins, bromelain, and all the other great benefits that daily fresh juice comes with.

Looking back, we started out in January with a few freshly painted kiosks, some presses, and an industrious fruit chopping machine recently arrived from England and supplied by our partners at Vigo Presses in Devon. A visit to the local pineapple farm, Milani, and a few meetings later, and we had an extremely good source of locally produced, subsidised fruit, and after conducting some interviews with local applicants (unemployment here is extremely high), we had our keen local recruits on board.

From the start, it was about building up a network of contacts and soon we had the support of Issaka Rahman, (or 'the Coach' as he is better known) from the District Assembly, Idris (a local marketing executive), and Sam Adji, the effervescent production manager at Milani, all vibrant characters in their own right and willing to help our project get off the ground. Then it was a case of finding the right pineapple mix, and refining the process and developing a taste: sweet but tangy, smooth but thick; and popular!

The next step was harder, as we sought to get a foothold in the vibrant and thriving local market town that is Kasoa. I had been caught up in the hustle and bustle of the African marketplace many times in my first few weeks and I had come to the conclusion that it was best approached with a wise head and a keen mood for haggling. It was no easy feat, then, that we managed to get locations for our kiosks, around the main intersection at the busy centre of town, painted a proud orange and bearing our 'AbroFresh!' branding - 'abrobe' being the Twi dialect for pineapple, with the tagline 'thirst for knowledge', the school motto.

That’s not to say we haven't had problems of course, and in the beginning we weren't helped by the fact that none of the juice girls have been to secondary school, a problem that our school should hopefully address for underprivileged children here in the future. It meant, however, that we had to establish stringent working practices as well as finding ways around their semi-illiteracy, but we have come on leaps and bounds since all those months ago.

So far the feedback has been encouraging, and, with the ongoing help and assistance from Rachel, our new Enterprise Project Manager, we're hoping to push on with expanding the enterprise in the next few months, setting up new kiosks in the nearby town of Winneba and pursuing new angles to the market with new products, different opening hours and developing wholesaling.

One of our main tasks now is building up the beekeeping project, with the vision of creating a regional centre of beekeeping excellence. With help from the Winton School expedition who were out from UK visiting us in August we've prepared ten hives already, with two colonies firmly established and nascent colonies in the others, and working in partnership with Elias Ayeebo (an expert on tropical beekeeping put in touch with us by the development charity Bees Abroad) we are building our expertise with the eventual aim of rolling out hives and beekeeping training for the local community.

The differences with tropical and temperate beekeeping are fascinating, and like many other aspects of life here, African beekeeping is ingenious in its adaptability and versatility, with our 'Kenyan' style hives consisting of no more than a few boards of 1" wood, with none of the tricky sophistication of the more familiar Langstroth hive, but nonetheless effective and indeed better suited to tropical conditions. I'd recommend anyone who is interested to have a look at our gallery to see how we are progressing in the coming months - we hope to have honey in the new year!

There is a huge potential for beekeeping in development, and our project has the potential to offer the community a low maintenance source of income, as a relatively low input, high yield activity especially attuned to those of the community who are for the most part engaged in subsistence farming. There are then of course agricultural benefits such as pollination, not to mention the health benefits of honey - for example, beekeeping is an activity well suited to HIV+ patients, the immune system benefits of which are well known.

So there we have it, six months in and we have a burgeoning business, an apiary , and of course a school ready for its next intake of keen students. There's not enough space here to mention all the good work that is going on, not least with all the progress we've made in getting a school bus, 5-a-side pitch and building networks of support, amongst many other advances we've made. As I'm writing this from the school office, I can see the bee hives on the hill up behind the freshly painted face of the second phase building , and the guards tending to the paths in preparation for our official opening ceremony in a few days ' time. These are exciting times to be part of the project and I hope you'll continue to follow us in our journey here in Awutu Bereku.

George Godson

James Riggs (Project Manager) Update: March 2011

Hi Everyone,

I have now been back in Ghana for about six weeks and, as ever, an incredible amount has happened. So, sit back, put your feet up, and I'll tell you all about it.

It was great to get back home over the Festive Period, catch up with friends and family and finally get my pesky knee fixed, but by late January I was desperate to get back to work. Arriving by night into any city in the world is always a treat, and Accra, by air, is no exception. The city hurtling up towards you, all bustling with people and life and commotion, and just as you think you’re going to crash head-long into a 'chop-seller', the runway appears from nowhere to gobble you up.

Spat out the other side of arrivals at a little after midnight I was met by the deputy head, Seth, and the new Project Officer, George Godson. George had flown out two weeks before I did, on a flight I was meant to take with him until my surgeon curtailed the plan (something about DVT of the knee). So, with a couple of weeks to find his feet, we were ready to hit the ground running the next morning.

When I arrived at the school around 8am the kids ran out stamping their feet and dancing and screaming and shouting to welcome me back. Honestly, I was completely bowled over. I hadn't been expecting it at all! It was only a day or so later that Seth mentioned, in passing, that the students had been really happy to see me because I “would not make them do the weeding”. Well, what can I say? It was a nice feeling while it lasted. The school itself was looking great, and a lot of work had been done painting up the low walls, installing a fence and planting trees along the north-west boundary. But there wasn't time to rest on our laurels and we had to restart construction on the second phase building [three more classrooms and a science lab] immediately, if the September deadline was to be met and the new students were to have somewhere to go. Baffour, the engineer from Accra, turned up that first morning, along with Awutu stalwart and long-term supporter (and Awutu-Winton Governor designate) of EDP, Eddie Quarshie, to formulate a time-line for the construction. Within three days the foundations were being filled in and the floors laid. In another few weeks we began to see walls creeping up and the classrooms were taking shape. So, definite progress and its going well but, just like last year, it could go right to the wire so keep those fingers crossed!

The plan to go ahead with the construction of the second phase building had been discussed, at length, during my time back in the UK. A number of issues had arisen, which I shan't bore you with that had brought a temporary impasse to proceedings at the end of last year. As a result of this construction halt the third, and final, classroom of the existing block had been left empty to accommodate second year students in September. What this meant was that as soon as we got the green light to go ahead, then we needed to put the fall-back classroom to use. This meant recruiting new students, and quickly!

The selection process itself is never an easy, or fun, task. There are always far, far too many applicants for places available and the majority, inevitably, end up disappointed. Watching the hopeful students, their friends and relatives, trudge off despondently when told the school is full is absolutely heartbreaking. We have been collecting applications almost daily since the school opened and, as a result, had to whittle down 300-plus to just 35. Unfortunately this is just our limit and if we had tried, as I'd dearly love to have done, to cram any more into the class then the teaching quality would suffer and, ultimately, so would the children.

The third class opened on Monday the 14th of February, bringing the number of students at the school up to over one hundred! And lessons are going great. The new class, tasked with having to catch-up as they are one term behind, have begun working like a steam train. We have had to extend the library opening hours and start running extra classes each afternoon [which the staff organised themselves, voluntarily, and for no extra pay I might add] just to cope with the demand for schooling - demand from the students. And if they are not studying hard then they are out playing volleyball or football on our hastily put together games field. The students are always happy when I speak to them and very grateful for the chance of a free education. Grateful and constantly thanking EDP for the school, telling me how blessed they are to be there. 'I feel very lucky', said the normally shy Eunice a couple of days ago, 'very lucky to have this opportunity'. I smiled at her and told her to carry on working hard and to just enjoy her new school. Yet for all the happy students, you can’t help but focus on the not so lucky ones. The young kids who didn't get in this time round. As they walk away from the school site deliberating over what I have told them about how we are trying to build the school up and to come back in the summer. I'm not going to even make a guess at how they must be feeling.

I mentioned briefly, above, the performance of the teachers, which has been fabulous and really shows how committed they all are. A few weeks after I got back I sat down with all of them to discuss the classes, student progress and areas they thought we could improve on. We discussed teaching methodologies and lesson structures, planning and reporting (thanks to Adam Nicholson for his continued support and advice in this vital area). Whilst these were all very constructive and, of course imperative, to the efficient running of the school, one thing kept coming up; shy students. As a result we have decided to offer more opportunities for public speaking at the school. These include short presentations in class and, excitingly, a debating society. The first of which is next week with the proposal, 'Awutu-Winton should be a single sex school'. I'll let you know how we get on, but it promises to be fiery if the early informal class discussions are anything to go by.

Another committed bunch are the parents, who have been great. A few weeks back we had the inaugural PTA meeting and, astonishingly, over 70 parents, guardians and relatives turned up. This is extremely good news as not only is parental feedback, opinion and expertise vital to push the school forward in a way that is synonymous with Ghanaian culture, but it helps the individual student too. It is well documented, in all parts of the world, and not least of all the UK, that committed [and these often means involved] parents will support their children better in their education. Drop-out rates fall as parents prioritise sending their children to school, whilst educational attainment is also positively affected by parents allowing children time to study.

Well, as that's got you up to date with the school side of things, just a quick run-down of the other side of the Awutu project, the businesses. As I'm sure you can appreciate, a school is a very expensive thing to run, with huge ongoing costs as well as initial start-up ones [sadly, this ongoing level of commitment is why the international donor community tends to shy away from educational projects, instead focusing on media/voter friendly one-off payment projects, with 'more bang for ya buck!']. As a result a key part of the work we are doing is trying to secure the financial sustainability of the school in years to come. We already have a great deal of wonderful support from a number of individuals in the UK who are sponsoring individual children [a big thank-you one and all, without you we wouldn't be able to do any of this work], as well as the continued and generous support of the staff and students at the Winton school in Andover. Thnaks to all your efforts we now have over 30 pupils beingf spinsored , and our hope is to get this to over the 100 mark by the end of next term as that would help to pay for most of the teachers' salaries.

But it doesn't stop there. A key part of building the financial security of the school is generating money within Ghana, and that means businesses. Not just any businesses, mind, think an ethical-business that aims to promote awareness, health, understanding and, most of all, provide our students with teachers, books and facilities. A sort of Ghanaian fair-trade organisation. Far-fetched you may think, but I'm here to tell you it’s not.

Here is how it has worked so far. George, who I mentioned at the start, has come out here to run, specifically, the pineapple juice project, which has just become operational. Drawing on the Lunans' many years of experience in trade and enterprise, a number of, loosely termed, agro-businesses have been discussed [including, amongst others, poultry farming, bee-keeping and fish-farming]. But it is the pineapple juice project that, for now, has seen the light of day with the help, support and advice of Alan Chubb in the UK. We have, as I think I have mentioned before, sourced pineapples from a very large local farm, Milani, who have given us a generously reduced rate by way of support for the school. Using our Vigo juice press, we churn out 10 gallons of freshly squeezed, natural, healthy and, if I may add, incredibly good, pineapple juice each morning. Our trusted 'kiosk-girls', Stella, Esi and Emmanuela, get to work each day selling the juice in nearby Kasoa, as a healthy and natural alternative to the carbonated, sugary American dream that it seems impossible to escape from anywhere in the world! And response has been great. Already after just four weeks, and with Georges tireless efforts [he leaves the house at 4am each morning], we are making a tidy little profit of one-hundred pounds a week, or, enough for one teacher and a librarian. Plans are afoot to expand the project, with nearby Winneba University an ideal area.

As the project grows, it will no doubt generate more vital revenue for the school whilst we also plan to subsidise one drink per day to each of the students (that vitamin C is pretty important, you know!). The next project – awaiting the maturity of Seth’s recently planted Acacia trees behind the second phase building- will be the Bee / Honey project. Watch this space!

Well, that's it I'm afraid. Plenty going on, and plenty to look forward to. The students and staff are working tirelessly to make this school the success it deserves to be. In the next few weeks, we hope to get the roof on the new building, invite the parents to the first ever parents evening and expand the juice project further. And in the midst of all that, England take on Ghana at Wembley. If the Black Stars take their World Cup form into that match, then George and myself will be in for more than a little stick from the students, and staff, around here.

David Lunan's EDP Update: January 2011

Dear Supporter,

As we are about to open the third classroom in Awutu, this seems a good moment to update everyone on the various developments since James Riggs' last blog in October , as much has been happening both at the school and behind the scenes.

James has been in UK since early December and flew back to Ghana last week, slightly delayed whilst he sorted out his knee. Having now had clearance from the specialist he tells us he intends to take up tennis playing again when he gets the chance to visit friends in Accra who boast a court. EDP's aim is to try and limit this opportunity by keeping him actively engaged at Awutu!

There is certainly plenty to do in the school, especially now we are about to increase the student population to just over 100. The good news is that James now has an assistant. George Godson flew out earlier this month and is already fully settled into his role of Sports Master and English support teacher. He will soon be actively running "The Juice Project" and giving James valuable assistance in a whole range of projects, and no doubt George will want to regale us all on his experiences in his own blog later in the year.

James in turn is planning to focus on the school curriculum - now we have a proper infrastructure - working closely with Seth, the Deputy Head. At the same time there are a number of practical issues to sort out such as longer term accommodation for the EDP team : hopefully a couple of rooms can be rented for the next two years at a reasonable rent in nearby Kasua . A vehicle also needs to be purchased - we are hoping to find in a decent condition - quite a tall order this! - a 12-seater minibus so we can transport budding sports teams around to local schools , as well as the staff, and also support The Juice Project ( slogan: “Thirst for Knowledge”) by picking up the supplies of pineapples and delivering the resultant juice to our planed mini network of kiosk outlets !

We are also hoping to build on the foundations made last term with the IT lab. Many people have helped us with the IT and we are very grateful for all the support. In particular we should mention Kieron Doyle and his team at Hampshire Business Computers in Romsey who have been fantastic in their assistance, which continued last week when they remotely helped George to set up the server Firewall, and the first email from a student - Justice Atkins- was duly sent out to EDP head quarters in Andover - a good moment. This was also due in part to Roberto Lipari’s considerable help last year in sourcing some 18, near state-of-the-art, PCs from his Intel connections. Thanks again Roberto!

James will also be focusing on the library. Thanks to Capio Hospitals Plc’s generous donation the library is full of reading tables and chairs and already well used. The aim is to extend the shelving around the walls as we have an increasing number of text and reference books to accommodate. Our next task is to start to co-ordinate supplies of English books and novels covering a wide variety of subjects, including, naturally, African authors - then gathering them together at EDP’s Andover offices and sending them out in the bulging suitcases of our various visitors. If anyone is interested in donating books for this project, please don’t hesitate to contact us!

Whilst all this activity is going on in Awutu there are developments afoot in the UK and beyond. Many of you know we set up a pupil sponsorship scheme last term and I’m delighted to confirm that we now have over 25 students being sponsored ( including three from Australia )to the tune of £300 a year ( or £25 a month) which is going towards supporting the ongoing costs of running the school. George will be organising the student responses to their various sponsors during the term, and our aim is to try to get the number of students sponsored up to 50 by the end of this second term, so to those of you who are already in the scheme : a big thank you, and to anyone who might be interested in joining – we’d love to hear from you! (Please contact Inez on: inez@edp-trust.org and she’ll send out a sponsor form by return- we promise!).

As part of the sponsorship awareness EDP have been liaising with the staff at Winton school in Andover, the sister school of Awutu. The Head, Chris McShane, has been very supportive and his colleague, Jane Williams, has also been diligently building the links between the two schools. In fact Jane plans to lead out a team of 9 students, with another colleague, to visit Awutu (after the school Summer Ball on July 16th which will be in aid of EDP- details to follow !) at the end of July to meet up with some of the students and the plan is also to help paint some of the new classrooms which we hope to have ready for the second year’s intake due in September ( which would take the school population up to over 200).

In between we have much to do to get the second phase of building complete. Once again the invaluable help of Martin Moore in London and local structural engineer Baffour Osei will be required to ensure we get those three additional classrooms and state-of-the-art science lab up and running in time.

We hope this has given you an update on the many recent developments. As you’d expect there is much going on and plenty to do, but the kids – the most important element in all of this – are responding really well and demand is growing steadily- at the last count we had nearly 400 applicants to the school.

Thank you all again for your interest and support for the project.

The next blog will be from James and therefore promises to be full of wit and surprises!

Kind regards

David

David Lunan, Director
EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS TRUST
135 Little Ann Road Andover Hampshire SP11 7NW
UK Charity No 1129398
Tel: +44 7702 342 670

Email: david@ebt-trust.org
Web: www.edp-trust.org

James Riggs (Project Manager) Update: January 2011

It is not only the second week in October but also, I am pleased to announce, the second week that the Awutu-Winton Senior High School has been open. It is great that, after so much hard work by many, many people both here and in the UK, we have finally been able to swing open the doors and welcome the first 35 students. Classes started last week, and have been a great success. But of course, its never that simple. The ongoing national census, which employs teaching staff, combined with the fact that the Ghana Education Service are still in the process of sending out Junior school grades and certificates from last year means that, nationally, secondary school openings have been put back until November. This second point is of most importance; not only can last year’s junior graduates not apply for further schooling without their certificates, but valuable teaching time is being eaten into. And with the current government reducing senior schooling cycles from 4 to 3 years [with the same content], then every minute counts. As a result, we have taken the step of opening the school early [or late, depending on your point of view], for older students from previous years who are in possession of graduation certificates. These students did not progress beyond junior schooling, often for financial reasons, and have been really enthusiastic about a free school that can give them opportunities to better themselves.

Furthermore, as the majority of the students are from the Awutu area and have been schooled at local, overcrowded and under-resourced, government schools it is important to brush up the basics before we push on with the course proper. And what with the majority of teachers busy with the census we find ourselves, perhaps fortunately, with no option other than to run introductory lessons in core maths, sciences and ICT for a couple of weeks using the handful of teachers we do have available. We are now just waiting, sitting tight, for the teachers and the certificates to be released so that we can start a full syllabus, and introduce a second class of 35 students from 2010 junior classes.

All in all though, it has been great to see the progress made over the past fortnight, and both the students and teachers are really enjoying themselves. The kids are all really committed and, though teaching is currently finishing at midday, [we start at 7] all are eager to stay behind in the library to study late into the afternoon. As a result I now find myself working as a temporary librarian.

So, that is where we are. And so now I shall start the journey of how we got here, since the last time we spoke, a couple of months ago:

In early August we ran interviews for the teaching staff, and selected the 6 teachers we needed to cover a full syllabus in year one. So, armed with our ministerial agreement, I sauntered off to Cape-Coast to meet the director of secondary cycles there to get the teachers signed over to our new school. As a Social-Democracy, Ghana's political landscape is highly decentralised and, as a result, decisions over such things as teacher allocations are taken on a more local level as opposed to nationally. The Director at Cape-Coast, whom I have met many times before, was very helpful and called his HR director into the meeting. We quickly agreed the transfer of the teachers we needed. A shake of the hand and I was on my way. Done! [ it was only later that we realized that EDP will have to pay for them as well!]

The next task was to get the oh-so-problematic container through the port. Despite my best efforts to get the pre-tax clearance documents in order and our import-duty waver form [see previous blog], as expected we came up against a few difficulties. The problem is that there are many, many departments that our forms had to get signed by and we could only start the ball rolling once we had the container’s 'bill of lading', which is only issued when the ship sets sail. So, with the ship leaving Southampton on a journey expected to take around three weeks, it was a straight race between the ship and Ghanaian tax and customs department. The ship won!

The container was in the port for three and a half further weeks before I got in to see it. I’m not going into what happened during that time, here, suffice to say I have a dozen more grey hairs on my head, and have now seen the inside of every office in the tax and customs department, and about two thirds of those in the social welfare department. Another couple of weeks followed of daily visits to the port. Usually these began each morning with a search for our guy - the most useless clearing agent in the whole of Accra - followed by a ridiculous battle just to get into the port. The clearing agent, officially, has the container in his name, and so once we realised how unhelpful the guy was we would have had to start the whole process again [another 6 weeks, at the standard port charge of $50 daily, whilst the container remained in limbo]. Thus we had no choice but to soldier on with what we had.

The port itself, Tema, is enormous and spending a little time in there was certainly an experience. Forty foot shipping containers are piled 4 or 5 high, in rows and rows that stretch for what seems like miles. An intricate network of deserted streets and passage ways exist between them where people are seen only fleetingly. The eerie silence is punctuated occasionally by the giant, giraffe necked, cranes that swoop along to pluck a container from its perch for emptying. Little teams of men emerge from their makeshift houses within disused and rusted containers and join the lines following the cranes. The containers are dropped in a smaller enclosure [still the size of two or three football pitches], and are 'inspected'. The men assemble in front of the container and ask if we need help unloading. What is in the container? Can they have anything? A computer? Do we need a driver? A truck? Where are we going? The tax officer arrives, signs some papers, checks the locks and opens the door. He pulls the first box down, takes a football from it, puts it under his arm, closes the door and walks off. Well, thank god the computers were at the back, right?

From here we had countless more forms, meetings, and signings to be done. Some of which I was allowed to see, others were conducted between the clearing agent and the various official looking people in private. I was told to wait in the car. This was boring. So I went for long, and frequent, walks around the port. The market for knocked off goods is so open as to be comical. Anything and everything is traded, swapped and sold, not so much off the back of a lorry as plucked from a giant steel box a top the seven seas. The teams of workers and labourers, operating in their little gangs, even have market stalls set up – some not more than 50 yards from the tax inspectors office. One of them had our football on it. A guard approached me and asked to see my security badge. Then he told me he could deport me for wearing flip flops. Off I trotted. Two more guards were in a bidding war for some Italian sandals. They eventually went to the jolly looking one for 10 Cedis [about a fiver], 'my wife will love these' he said.

By the time we finally climbed aboard a lorry [captain fantastic, the clearing agent, had lost his] it had been more than two months since the container had left the UK, and at least five weeks that it had been sat in the West African heat of the port. I was worried as to how the contents had faired [though I needn't have been as miraculously all but one computer monitor was fine]. When we eventually got out onto the road to start the journey back to the school, I settled down, beginning to think for the first time this ordeal might be over. Though of course, deep-down, I knew it wasn't. The police were very helpful, and kept pulling us over to offer advice, and generally be very pleasant. Every mile or so, we got the chance to introduce ourselves to a new group of young guys, armed and inquisitive. It was always good to stop and talk. Some even wanted to look inside the container, and they all liked footballs ! So friendly were they, in fact, that I didn't even notice that the two hour journey took us seven instead and our stock of footballs was severely depleted . By the time we got back, my primary concern was looking imminent. Rain. A lot of rain. We managed to get the truck along the dirt road to the school site, which in a few hours time would be an impassable mud ditch. But the clouds were threatening and now it was a race against the sky. As we only had two small cranes to get the container off the back of the lorry, everything had to be removed first. What followed was an hour long rush of pulling everything out, whilst trying to maintain some sort of order and control over where everything was going. Mercifully however, it was all finished just in time, and as I waved the truck driver off and set off to get a feed, the heavens opened and brought some welcome rest-bite from the mid-afternoon heat. It was fantastic!

The next few weeks were spent fitting out the ICT lab with the computers and getting the generator up and running in preparation for the grand opening. A lot of work had to be done, and I was very grateful to have the help of David and Martin who had come out to see how things were going. Whilst the three of us were together [ and once Martin had sorted out the issues of the building standards in regard to the phase two foundations which had just been started ] we started work on the pineapple juicer project that we hope will be able to raise some revenue for the school. A couple of fun days spent larking around with an industrial cider press and a trip to a huge local pineapple farm, Milani Queen, was how we spent the weekend. And as a result, last week, we opened a fresh juice kiosk in Awutu. The fantastically named [not by myself] 'Thirst for Knowledge' kiosk has done a steady trade in its first few days and feed-back has been encouraging. Next year we hope to roll this out further afield - though this requires a great deal of logistical and supply chain management, which gets even more complicated with fresh produce [especially in Africa].

So, that is just about where we find ourselves. The school is two weeks old, and going along nicely. The census, and its use of teaching staff to carry out the research, has meant that the Ghana Education Service have postponed 'official' openings until November. As a result we are currently a couple of teachers down, though they are set to return next week. But with the term up and running we all have plenty to be thankful for. All we have to do now is, get the electricity connected, start adult classes, iron out ICT server problems, expand the juice project, create an electronic school records system, recruit a second class, ensure a safe and secure learning environment, organise teacher contracts, print school badges, build second phase classrooms, meet parents, set up community management organisation, locate internet service provider, collect extra text books, build a fence with security gate, fix a broken water tower, build a road, get a bus and dig a football pitch.

Any volunteers?!

James Riggs , Project Manager
Awutu-Winton Senior High School
Awutu-Bereku
Central State, Ghana

October 9th 2010

Ps Some of you have been asking about Francisca, one of our first students and to hear her story again, so here it is ( see a picture of Francisca on the Gallery Section) :

Francisca Arhin, a small twenty year old, sits opposite me and recounts the story of her life with a matter-of-factness that is completely devoid of all self pity. Her mother, she tells me, died when she was young and, as a result, her father abandoned her and her six sisters.

Francisca is the youngest of seven girls and all of the rest are married, with children, and none have completed Senior School. After being all but orphaned from a young age, Francisca has moved around a great deal and lived with various relatives but, mercifully, did manage to finish State Junior School [JHS] in 2008. Her grades were good, and she enjoyed Maths and Science, but she never held out any hope of being able to afford the secondary school fees that are mandatory for all Senior Schools in Ghana [as in most of Africa]. Her dreams of going to University in Accra to study accounting seemed an impossibility. After JHS she was sent to live in a family home in Tema, the industrial heartland of Accra's port, as a home help girl. For four months she washed and cleaned and scrubbed and cooked, all for the price of basic board and a little food. She doesn't elaborate on why she left, saying simply, 'it wasn't good'. From there she moved back in with her big sister, 'the fourth born', and her family. Helping out around the house and working part time selling phone credit in Awutu. The latter she describes as 'boring, very, very boring!'

The last time I sat down and spoke to Francisca was three weeks ago to tell her that she had been accepted into the school [we have had hundreds and hundreds of applications and sadly only limited space]. A huge smile crept over her face and her eyes lit up like dazzling headlamps. An hour later, on my way home, I would see her skipping down the road back to Awutu.

A dedicated and hard working student, Francisca arrives early every morning to study for an hour before school starts and is once more beginning to think about a career in accounting. Perhaps I see a little glimpse of the fiery future professional when she snaps at two lads to be quite so she can concentrate; before correcting them on their grammar. But even then, the smile I first saw three weeks ago is still there. As it has been every time I have seen her in school. She tells me she is enjoying her classes and that she is 'so, so happy to go to school'. She wants to work hard for her future, a future that until recently was looking bleak. 'I have to work hard', she tells me, 'I am very lucky to have this opportunity. Many others do not'.

A close knit group of sisters, all the rest are hoping she does well. The 'forth born', told me when we meet at the school, 'we are all so proud of our little girl, she is blessed that there is a free school here in Awutu.' She looks round at her youngest sister and smiles the same family smile, 'she must work hard, but we all know she can do many great things'.

They hug, before laughing.