David Lunan's EDP Update: September 2012

Dear Supporter,

Thank you for reading this blog and for logging into the EDP website.

There has been a lot of activity in EDP and at Awutu-Winton SHS over the past few months, despite the long break of nearly 3 months between the end of term on June 18th and the start of the New Year, our third academically, on September 11th.

We have been lucky enough to have a visit from two Newcastle University students, Sophie Keith and Sinead Molloy, who not only raised the funds for their trip but also had enough left over to buy paint and then decorate the entire first phase block during most of August. A picture of their work will shortly be posted on the website gallery and big “thank you” girls for such a great effort!

Our current team of volunteers, Rachel Schmieder, Harriet Fisher and James Jacob are working hard in support of the school and its enterprise operation. The juice business continues to alternatively excite and frustrate, but a lot of effort has been put into it and we are still hopeful that it can grow into a long term profitable venture. Two supporters, Alan Chubb, and Di Francis, both agriculturists with extensive experience in the tropics, have offered to fund themselves on a trip out to Awutu in November to assess the project and we will be posting a report with their recommendations onto the website in December after they return to UK.

During the summer a lot of hard work was put in by Harriet and then James assisted ably by EDP’s locally recruited assistant, Famous, to prepare the new sports field which we were able to buy thanks to the generosity of one of our keen supporters earlier this year. There was the inevitable issue with hiring reliable enough equipment to clear the land, level it and stop the rains from washing it all away (the rainy season is from March-October and tropical downpours have a way of eroding newly constructed sports field rather rapidly!). Suffice it to say in the end hundreds of sandbags had to be filled and placed in situ to prevent the erosion, this was done with a lot of sweat and hard graft by Harriet, James & Famous supported from time to time by groups of AWSHS students , keen to see the sports-field up and running for the new academic year. Pictures are going on the website shortly, and games, including of course Football and Volley ball, but also Touch Rugby (the first of such to be played, we suspect anywhere in Central Region) have started in earnest!

We now have the Science lab up and almost running- Rachel is pushing hard for the gas man to come and connect those Bunsen burners! - but it is also contributing as an extra class room as, having nearly 150 candidates vying for their max 70 places available this year, we have been using the science lab as an exam hall as well as we have now instigated an entrance exam to try and fine-tune our selection process – a tricky balance of need vs. academic ability and it’s always a pity to have to turn kids away as we know they won’t get a second chance of gaining a secondary education.

The selection process of teachers has simultaneously been running its course. Rachel and Seth have worked closely together on this and we now have a total of 14 teachers, 8 full time and 6 part time, 6 of the full time are young teachers doing their National Service and this is proving to be a very cost effective way of expanding our permanent staff- the general feedback has been that NS teachers enjoy working at AWSHS, but the work load for them is certainly much higher than at the State equivalent!

Getting more full time teachers remains a top priority if we are even to get official recognition from the Government and the Ghana Education Service. We remain, as far as we are aware, the only secondary school in the south of Ghana to be free of fees outside the capital. Our region remains poor, unemployment levels are hard to gauge, but local sentiment estimates it at well over 50%, so getting a secondary education offers the children who can get it the way out of the grinding poverty trap - if we can get more full time teachers we can get GES accreditation and that in turn will mean we can become an exam centre in our own right and drive our reputation as a bastion, we hope, of academic ability forward. The long term sustainability of the school remains our concern: It can’t just be a constant plea for financial hand-outs, we MUST find ways to ensure the long term viability of the school and that is something we are continuing to work hard on.

Anyway, thanks again for reading this , and thank you, again, for your on-going support and interest in AWSHS and EDP.

Best wishes,

David

David Lunan
Director, EDP Trust
September 2012