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
9th October 2011
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