I recently went to visit my friend, Kingsley Eshun, at his school/orphanage. When I was here 3 years ago, Kingsley was working to establish a school/orphanage outside of Accra. He and his family (wife and 3 kids) were some of the nicest and most humble people that I’ve ever met. They lived in very humble circumstances, but were willing to share all that they had with me. I was overwhelmed with the school!
The school provides education for about 200 kids in all, from ages 2 to 12. The school has no electricity and no running water. It consists of three buildings. One of the buildings has 4 classrooms, each of which has a particular grade of about 25-30 students. Kingsley teaches grade 5 (11-year olds) and runs the place. Teachers are found from the local community. Kingsley’s wife, Gloria, is the cook for the kids. The school functions as a school for about 60 orphans, and then the rest of the kids are from the local area.
When school closes each day, some of the orphans go home with some of the other school children and stay with local families. The rest stay at the school and sleep there. I guess when the local families who were housing the orphans saw the better education that the orphans were getting than their own kids, they collectively decided to start sending their own kids to Kingsley’s school too. Each child pays 20,000 cedis ($2) per semester to go to school there. There are 3 semesters in a school year. So imagine spending $6 a year for your kids to go to school! And Kingsley has to use that money to buy books, pay teachers, provide food, etc…. It is unbelievable!
As we drove into the school compound, the children were all on their lunch break. I was an instant celebrity, and they all wanted to touch the car and shake my hand. Each classroom consists of cement block walls, dirt floors, and corrugated tin roofs. They also have one medium-sized blackboard at the front and wooden benches and desks for the students. Each desk is shared by 3 kids. Another building has 2 other classrooms, and also has housing facilities for the children and foreign visitors. The third building is yet to be completed as it still needs a roof, but they will use it as a large meeting hall. Kingsley has also offered it to the local Latter-day Saint branch to use as a meetinghouse, since they don’t have a place of their own.
What impressed me the most about the school was the nursery class. Their classroom was a tree. In the mornings, they sit in the shade on one side of the tree, while their teacher sits in a chair at the base of the tree. In the afternoon, they switch sides of the tree so that the kids can still be in the shade. There must have been 30 kids age 2-3 in this class, and the teacher was a young woman named Miriam. They sang songs, danced, played games, etc… all in the shade of the tree, and these kids were the best-behaved set of 2-3-year-olds that I ever saw. Not one of them ever got up and wandered around, or talked out of turn, etc…. I could’ve used Miriam’s magic in my nursery classes at church, that’s for sure. I couldn’t imagine Spencer ever sitting still and attentive for that long, but these kids were great! I had to take pictures, so I snapped quite a few of the school, its buildings, and the students.
Kingsley’s school is the typical type of Ghanaian building that gets done in phases. Most people build what they can afford at the moment, and then they have to wait until they get more money and can add to what has already been done. That is why you see so many half-built homes, schools, etc…. here, it’s because they ran out of money to finish the project. And it makes sense here. People can’t wait until they save enough money for an entire project, due to demands of family, friends, etc… In Ghana, if you have money, many people can make various claims on how your money gets spent. So the smart idea is to just use your money immediately to build a physical structure, and then you don’t have any money for others to wriggle away from you. So….the largest building at the school remains unfinished, needing a roof. He said it would take about $500 to complete. Who knows when it will be done and ready for them to use.
The school provides education for about 200 kids in all, from ages 2 to 12. The school has no electricity and no running water. It consists of three buildings. One of the buildings has 4 classrooms, each of which has a particular grade of about 25-30 students. Kingsley teaches grade 5 (11-year olds) and runs the place. Teachers are found from the local community. Kingsley’s wife, Gloria, is the cook for the kids. The school functions as a school for about 60 orphans, and then the rest of the kids are from the local area.
When school closes each day, some of the orphans go home with some of the other school children and stay with local families. The rest stay at the school and sleep there. I guess when the local families who were housing the orphans saw the better education that the orphans were getting than their own kids, they collectively decided to start sending their own kids to Kingsley’s school too. Each child pays 20,000 cedis ($2) per semester to go to school there. There are 3 semesters in a school year. So imagine spending $6 a year for your kids to go to school! And Kingsley has to use that money to buy books, pay teachers, provide food, etc…. It is unbelievable!
As we drove into the school compound, the children were all on their lunch break. I was an instant celebrity, and they all wanted to touch the car and shake my hand. Each classroom consists of cement block walls, dirt floors, and corrugated tin roofs. They also have one medium-sized blackboard at the front and wooden benches and desks for the students. Each desk is shared by 3 kids. Another building has 2 other classrooms, and also has housing facilities for the children and foreign visitors. The third building is yet to be completed as it still needs a roof, but they will use it as a large meeting hall. Kingsley has also offered it to the local Latter-day Saint branch to use as a meetinghouse, since they don’t have a place of their own.
What impressed me the most about the school was the nursery class. Their classroom was a tree. In the mornings, they sit in the shade on one side of the tree, while their teacher sits in a chair at the base of the tree. In the afternoon, they switch sides of the tree so that the kids can still be in the shade. There must have been 30 kids age 2-3 in this class, and the teacher was a young woman named Miriam. They sang songs, danced, played games, etc… all in the shade of the tree, and these kids were the best-behaved set of 2-3-year-olds that I ever saw. Not one of them ever got up and wandered around, or talked out of turn, etc…. I could’ve used Miriam’s magic in my nursery classes at church, that’s for sure. I couldn’t imagine Spencer ever sitting still and attentive for that long, but these kids were great! I had to take pictures, so I snapped quite a few of the school, its buildings, and the students.
Kingsley’s school is the typical type of Ghanaian building that gets done in phases. Most people build what they can afford at the moment, and then they have to wait until they get more money and can add to what has already been done. That is why you see so many half-built homes, schools, etc…. here, it’s because they ran out of money to finish the project. And it makes sense here. People can’t wait until they save enough money for an entire project, due to demands of family, friends, etc… In Ghana, if you have money, many people can make various claims on how your money gets spent. So the smart idea is to just use your money immediately to build a physical structure, and then you don’t have any money for others to wriggle away from you. So….the largest building at the school remains unfinished, needing a roof. He said it would take about $500 to complete. Who knows when it will be done and ready for them to use.
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