“It’s in the bush! You want to go to the bush?!” One of the young English speaking girls replied when I told her that I wanted to accompany the women on their morning fire wood gathering mission.
“Yes – is that okay? Can I go with them?” I replied. I was standing in a small circle of short and wiry Ghanaian women holding hand made axes and cutlasses (machetes). They looked me up and down.
“But you don’t even have long sleeves!” I looked at the women who were going. They were dressed in their standard attire of a baggy long dress with short sleeves and flip flops. One of the younger girls didn’t even have shoes on. Nonetheless, I was sure that it was probably in my best interest to cover as much skin as possible if I was heading out with them. I went and changed into long pants, rubber boots, and a long sleeved shirt. We were off.
After 30 minutes walking down the red dirt road and another 15 minutes of bushwhacking, I found myself sitting in 12 foot tall grass and shielding my eyes from the hot sun as I watched one of the women, in a satin finish pink dress with flowers, climbing a large dead shea nut tree with a cutlass in one hand. About halfway up the tree, she stopped and steadied herself on a branch before beginning to hack away at the other branches with her cutlass. The heavy branches flattened the tall grass as they fell around the tree.
The firewood was further chopped into smaller pieces and tied on u-shaped basket frames to be carried back. I helped a few of the ladies hoist their incredibly heavy loads on top of their heads, and then asked if I could try carrying the load that was earmarked for the youngest girl (who appeared to be about 10 years old). I tried to lift the load, but needed assistance to make it up above my head. I put the firewood on my head for maybe 10 wobbly seconds before the women insisted on taking it from me. I didn’t complain – it was far too heavy for me to carry even 10 feet, let alone the long journey back.
I learned many things that Saturday morning in the village. One of them was that collecting firewood is really not my forte. I probably didn’t need to come to Ghana to figure that out.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Going to School
It was a Friday morning and I found myself surrounded by about 50 children dressed in dark green uniforms, singing and animatedly performing the actions to their song. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face if I tried – really not a bad way to start a day.
Three of my host sisters are school teachers at the same school and they invited me to see their school and the children. They teach at a nursery school – similar to our pre-school or kindergarten. Kids start here when they are four years old, and will move on to the primary school around the age of six, or when they have proven they can pass the requisite test of reading and arranging numbers 0 through 50, and writing and sounding out the alphabet.
Dark clouds settle in
As happy as the kids’ songs make me, I can’t suppress a deeper sadness that is growing as I take in their reality. Uniforms are ratty and torn. There are hundreds of children in this three room classroom block – many of them take their class under a tree outside. This means that if it rains, the kids either go home, or go and join their classmates inside where the deafening sound of the rain hitting the tin roof is only matched by the voices of the hundreds of children crammed into a few tiny rooms. “We can’t teach again” I’m told by my host sister, as she describes what happens when the rains come.
There is a blackboard in each room (and one set up under the tree), and some benches with small tables for the children to sit at, but no other teaching aids to speak of. I’m introduced to the headmaster – a welcoming woman with a baby tied to her back. The motivation amongst the teachers appears to be quite low. First period is an hour and it’s scheduled as music (thus the singing). But after 20 minutes the teachers run out of songs to sing with the children and sit on some benches as the kids run around and play. Then when the hour of the first period is up, one of the teachers rings a bell and yells “Break!” Break from what? I wonder. The kids have already been playing in the playground for the last half an hour.
Missing motivation: a key piece of the puzzle
I know the teachers care for the kids, but there are very few incentives in place to motivate performance in teaching. Their only goal is simply to teach the kids the numbers to 50 and the alphabet – over a period of about two years. They’re poorly paid, have no resources to do their jobs, and no one holds them accountable. Many of the parents of the children are illiterate and so long as their children are away in the morning, they assume they’re at school learning.
A story of one family
During the break, I sat on the bench with the teachers, watching the children. The teachers spotted a small boy sleeping on the side of the field amongst children playing. They called him over to see if he was sick. The boy, wearing torn and dirty clothes instead of the required uniform, made his way over to the teachers. His slightly older sister (also in dirty clothes) accompanied him. My host sister, Amelia, felt his forehead. “Is he sick?” she asked his sister. “No madam. Hungry” the small girl answered. “Mmm. You are hungry too?” “Yes madam”. Amelia called over to the lady on the side of the playground selling rice and ordered a small portion for each of the two children. She took some money from her own purse and gave it to them. They took it to exchange for the rice. I watched them as they sat and ate. Life was breathed back into them both and they joined the other kids on the playground.
My other host sister, Alijatu, told me their story. “Their father was a teacher here at this school. March 6 of this year he was teaching. That night he was even at a meeting with some other people in the community. March 7 he passed away. The mother is just sitting down, not doing anything (to make money). When she brought the kids here for enrollment, she didn’t have the GHc2.00 for the school fees for each child ($1.40 each) but we had to take them because their father was a teacher here. Still, up to today, no uniforms for the children.” My smile from the children’s songs earlier had long faded – this was heavy stuff for a Friday morning.
The bigger picture
I sat a while longer and contemplated how many more children at the school went hungry every day. How many of the girls I saw would be pulled from school as soon as they were old enough to carry water? How many students’ potential was lost without an education system that could engage them? And what was the reality for the children in the other outlying communities if this was all happening in Bole, the district capital, where the schools are significantly better than those in the other communities in the districts?
The gift of opportunity
I thought about the District Coordinating Director at my district. He was a well educated man and a strong leader at our office. He had only transferred to our district about six months ago, but he wasted no time putting procedures in place that were supposed to be there and encouraging better work practices. He told me that he attended a secondary school that was fully funded by a Dutch Catholic Church. Fully funded to the extent that the students even ate cheese (cheese is non existent in northern Ghana now, let alone 40 years ago). Most of his classmates went on to become top government officials, consultants for big NGOs, and leaders of their sectors. A glaring example of how powerful a good education can be.
Education is a system, not a school
My visit to the school was a clear demonstration that education does not come with the delivery of a school. Education comes from a system of engaging students and transferring knowledge from teachers who are resourced and motivated. A system that allows kids to explore curiosities and pushes them to develop their potential. And education really is absolutely necessary to bring a country out of extreme poverty. My story sounds bleak, but I know that there are also a few examples of effective education delivery around the country – both government run and donor funded.
Beyond building schools
The reason I share this information with you is not so that you will feel pity for the children in Ghana. I share so that if you ever hear about someone going to a developing country to build a school – you can ask them some questions. Who will be teaching and how will they be resourced? Will the children in the community be able to attend, or have their guardians decided that helping on the farm is more important? Will the children need a school feeding program to ensure they are able to learn? Do they have books and pencils to use? Will anyone be checking on the quality of education they receive? It’s not easy, but these are important questions to ask. Those of us who want to do development work need to hold each other accountable to ensure that what we are doing is actually having the intended impact for the intended beneficiaries. A structure won’t educate a population alone, and it’s not enough to sit around and pat each other on the back for thinking about the ‘poor kids in Africa’.
Optimism remains
Educating the population of a country is slow – but so is change and development. But I know that the rewards will be great as education for the majority of the world’s population can unlock the human potential of Ghana, of Africa, and of developing communities around the world. Let’s see what amazing things people can do when they are given the opportunity.
Three of my host sisters are school teachers at the same school and they invited me to see their school and the children. They teach at a nursery school – similar to our pre-school or kindergarten. Kids start here when they are four years old, and will move on to the primary school around the age of six, or when they have proven they can pass the requisite test of reading and arranging numbers 0 through 50, and writing and sounding out the alphabet.
Dark clouds settle in
As happy as the kids’ songs make me, I can’t suppress a deeper sadness that is growing as I take in their reality. Uniforms are ratty and torn. There are hundreds of children in this three room classroom block – many of them take their class under a tree outside. This means that if it rains, the kids either go home, or go and join their classmates inside where the deafening sound of the rain hitting the tin roof is only matched by the voices of the hundreds of children crammed into a few tiny rooms. “We can’t teach again” I’m told by my host sister, as she describes what happens when the rains come.
There is a blackboard in each room (and one set up under the tree), and some benches with small tables for the children to sit at, but no other teaching aids to speak of. I’m introduced to the headmaster – a welcoming woman with a baby tied to her back. The motivation amongst the teachers appears to be quite low. First period is an hour and it’s scheduled as music (thus the singing). But after 20 minutes the teachers run out of songs to sing with the children and sit on some benches as the kids run around and play. Then when the hour of the first period is up, one of the teachers rings a bell and yells “Break!” Break from what? I wonder. The kids have already been playing in the playground for the last half an hour.
Missing motivation: a key piece of the puzzle
I know the teachers care for the kids, but there are very few incentives in place to motivate performance in teaching. Their only goal is simply to teach the kids the numbers to 50 and the alphabet – over a period of about two years. They’re poorly paid, have no resources to do their jobs, and no one holds them accountable. Many of the parents of the children are illiterate and so long as their children are away in the morning, they assume they’re at school learning.
A story of one family
During the break, I sat on the bench with the teachers, watching the children. The teachers spotted a small boy sleeping on the side of the field amongst children playing. They called him over to see if he was sick. The boy, wearing torn and dirty clothes instead of the required uniform, made his way over to the teachers. His slightly older sister (also in dirty clothes) accompanied him. My host sister, Amelia, felt his forehead. “Is he sick?” she asked his sister. “No madam. Hungry” the small girl answered. “Mmm. You are hungry too?” “Yes madam”. Amelia called over to the lady on the side of the playground selling rice and ordered a small portion for each of the two children. She took some money from her own purse and gave it to them. They took it to exchange for the rice. I watched them as they sat and ate. Life was breathed back into them both and they joined the other kids on the playground.
My other host sister, Alijatu, told me their story. “Their father was a teacher here at this school. March 6 of this year he was teaching. That night he was even at a meeting with some other people in the community. March 7 he passed away. The mother is just sitting down, not doing anything (to make money). When she brought the kids here for enrollment, she didn’t have the GHc2.00 for the school fees for each child ($1.40 each) but we had to take them because their father was a teacher here. Still, up to today, no uniforms for the children.” My smile from the children’s songs earlier had long faded – this was heavy stuff for a Friday morning.
The bigger picture
I sat a while longer and contemplated how many more children at the school went hungry every day. How many of the girls I saw would be pulled from school as soon as they were old enough to carry water? How many students’ potential was lost without an education system that could engage them? And what was the reality for the children in the other outlying communities if this was all happening in Bole, the district capital, where the schools are significantly better than those in the other communities in the districts?
The gift of opportunity
I thought about the District Coordinating Director at my district. He was a well educated man and a strong leader at our office. He had only transferred to our district about six months ago, but he wasted no time putting procedures in place that were supposed to be there and encouraging better work practices. He told me that he attended a secondary school that was fully funded by a Dutch Catholic Church. Fully funded to the extent that the students even ate cheese (cheese is non existent in northern Ghana now, let alone 40 years ago). Most of his classmates went on to become top government officials, consultants for big NGOs, and leaders of their sectors. A glaring example of how powerful a good education can be.
Education is a system, not a school
My visit to the school was a clear demonstration that education does not come with the delivery of a school. Education comes from a system of engaging students and transferring knowledge from teachers who are resourced and motivated. A system that allows kids to explore curiosities and pushes them to develop their potential. And education really is absolutely necessary to bring a country out of extreme poverty. My story sounds bleak, but I know that there are also a few examples of effective education delivery around the country – both government run and donor funded.
Beyond building schools
The reason I share this information with you is not so that you will feel pity for the children in Ghana. I share so that if you ever hear about someone going to a developing country to build a school – you can ask them some questions. Who will be teaching and how will they be resourced? Will the children in the community be able to attend, or have their guardians decided that helping on the farm is more important? Will the children need a school feeding program to ensure they are able to learn? Do they have books and pencils to use? Will anyone be checking on the quality of education they receive? It’s not easy, but these are important questions to ask. Those of us who want to do development work need to hold each other accountable to ensure that what we are doing is actually having the intended impact for the intended beneficiaries. A structure won’t educate a population alone, and it’s not enough to sit around and pat each other on the back for thinking about the ‘poor kids in Africa’.
Optimism remains
Educating the population of a country is slow – but so is change and development. But I know that the rewards will be great as education for the majority of the world’s population can unlock the human potential of Ghana, of Africa, and of developing communities around the world. Let’s see what amazing things people can do when they are given the opportunity.
Village Dance Party
Some photos from a village that I visted one afternoon to dance to some xylophone music and drumming on plastic gerry cans.
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