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