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