​Thursday between preparing for the arrivals of our conference attendees Wendy and I visited our two Winneba schools, Don Bosco and St. Paul’s.  The students at both had graduated, so they came in on their vacations and waited several hours for us.  This sort of dedication and patience never ceases to amaze and impress me.
  
We were particularly eager to thank the Don Bosco students for their initiative in undertaking independent-research projects.  It is our hope that more schools will do this sort of work, and the students and their teacher, Madam Cynthia, worked very hard on the projects.

At St. Paul’s we met with Mr. Mills and the students who would be attending the conference, and talked with the students of their plans for senior secondary schooling.  Most students in Ghana live away from home for their three years of senior high school (equivalent to grades 10-12 in the U.S.), so this is a very big step.  Roughly half of Ghana students are able to attend high school, so it is a very exciting time, preparing for this big stage of life and career.

Tuesday afternoon after the drive from Sampa we had the pleasure of again visiting Wings for Life. This remarkable institution, led by the Ampofo family, has innovative and student-centered after-school programs. Ghana schools tend to emphasize memorization, and it was delightful to meet and talk with WFL’s students, to witness first hand their curiosity and initiative.  WFL also offers education for special-needs children.  Mrs. Mercy Ampofo and her son, Rudolph, are among the leaders in Ghana in these fields, and their excitement for education in general and child-centered education in particular is inspiring.

Next morning we had the pleasure of visiting a school recommended a few months ago to us by WFL: Mt. Olivet School.  Mt. Olivet was celebrating its twentieth anniversary.  It began as a nursery program, and its founder, Madam Regina, kept expanding in response to parent requests.  Now it serves over 500 students. The students were performing dances, the garden had lovely fragrances, and the staff and students were excited about their work—and to be part of Yo Ghana! 

Mt. Olivet joined us a few months ago when one of our Ghana schools dropped out in the middle of the year, and their students did a wonderful job. We are thrilled that they are part of the Yo Ghana! family.

Monday was a very full day, as we visited five (yes, five!) schools in and around Sampa.

Mr. Brew and his crew put on an extravagant program at Nipaba Brew School.  The staff and students (more than 500) were outfitted in Yo Ghana! school shirts and gathered for a program that featured a sound system and microphone and then a wonderful performance from the school’s dance team.  We could also see the school’s program of expansion, with a second Junior High School building nearing completion, as the school will be offering a full JHS program by September 2017.  If you are ever in Sampa, you absolutely must visit this school, and the hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Brew is unmatched.  They always take such good care of us.

We then had the pleasure of speaking to and meeting with St. Ann’s Senior High School’s students.  This is a very new all-girls’ high school that expects a total of about eighty students in the fall.  Mother Mary, a nun from India, is the headmistress of the school, and despite limited resources the students are very keen and the staff very dedicated.  We met with this school last September, and we are delighted that they are now part of the Yo Ghana! team and will be writing letters to their friends at St. Mary’s High School in Portland, also an all-girls Catholic school.

Then Mr. Albert and the rest of the staff at Morle Junior High School hosted us.  Mr. Essan Weah, who has visited many Oregon schools for Yo Ghana!, was some years ago the headmaster of this school, and its students write excellent and vivid letters.  Though their numbers are small, they are sending four students to the Winneba Conference.

We closed the afternoon by visiting two prospective Yo Ghana! schools, a young Presbyterian primary school and a Catholic junior high school, both public schools.  Like other countries, Ghana is a place of contrasts.  Many of its schools feature ample and modern libraries, computer and scientific laboratories.  Most rural schools feature students crowded into classrooms that are often open to the elements with teachers who rely on the sun for light and principally on chalk for instruction.  What most of these diverse schools have in common are teachers and students who are exceptionally welcoming to strangers dedicated to learning, and our visits to all five schools left us impressed and inspired.

​Today we had the pleasure of visiting Savelegu Senior High School for the third time in less than two years.  The staff and students are unfailingly welcoming and kind to us; this is always one of the high points of our Ghana tours.  Mr. Nantogma introduced us to the school administration and then led a very useful and informative session with the school’s faculty.  We then met with the students who have been exchanging letters and who hope to exchange letters in the future.  These students write some of the most detailed and thoughtful letters in our exchange and always have incisive questions and observations.

Like many schools in the Northern Region, SAVESS is comprised mostly of Muslim students and staff, and Yo Ghana is delighted that letters from such students are providing American students with a much more accurate and flattering impression of Muslims and Africans than Americans are usually exposed to.  As if to underscore this point, a roadside merchant we had purchased some shirts from last year threw in a free shirt for Wendy after I had purchased two from him—even after Lucy had bargained down the price—because “we are friends.”  Northern Ghana is a special place.

​Sunday late afternoon we arrived in Dambai after Kwami Akoto made transportation arrangements for us and then had a very good meeting with Mr. Opong, who is the head teacher if Dambai Demonstration School, and his colleagues. Monday morning we had a fine meeting with a the staff who work with the letters and also the students.  It was a beautiful day and fine meeting.  We were struck by the willingness of the staff and students to persevere with the letter writing despite various challenges, including spotty internet service in the town.  Board member Elizabeth always seems especially at home at Dambai and made an especially good friend.

We were also heartened to see how much progress the school had made, with no outside help, at building a new block of classrooms for its junior high school.  Nearly two years ago Mr. Brando Akoto told the school leaders during out visit that although Yo Ghana! would not simply build them a new building, if they started it, we would help.  Last year the foundation was in place.  Now there is a fine cement floor, a strong roof, and the start of some walls, all because of the work of the school’s PTA, led by Mr. Stephen Benyanase.  Brando also pledged that we’d be partners and friends for decades to come.  It is so good to see the fruits of his vision ripen.

Yesterday was a big day.  We (Lucy, Wendy, and David) had a great time, as always, at Angel’s Academy, where school founder Mr. Ernest Opoku-Ansah and head teachers Mr. Justice and Mr. Daniel showed us the new computer laboratory that the school built on its own initiative. Yo Ghana contributed a very, very small part to it, well under 5 percent of the cost.  We were very excited to learn that at the school’s graduation ceremony on August 6 the lab will be dedicated to Mr. Brando Akoto, who passed away late last year and was a great blessing to Yo Ghana! and everyone else he met.  We also got to meet many of the students briefly.  Mr. Ernest started this school many years ago in his living room, for poor students who could not afford to go to school otherwise. 

Then it was on to L & A Academy (see photo), where Mr. Kankam hosted us and brought us up to  date on how the Yo Ghana! partnership went this year.  Mr. Kankam is one of our most dedicated coordinators and consistently has more than 100 students writing, which is a massive amount of work.  He is the first  Ghana teacher I met, nearly five years ago, and it is always good to see him. L & A Academy is another school that started out as a free school for poorer students, on a slab of cement, and now has grown into a very impressive institution without forgetting its humble roots.

Then Mr. Frank got us safe and sound to the University of Education, Winneba, where board member Dr. Eric Ananga and his very able research assistant, Miss Berthy, sat down and we worked out the details of the conference to be held there July 1 and 2.  The conference hall is very impressive, a grand building in every way, and we are setting aside classrooms for the smaller sessions.  They have done a wonderful job working with the university to provide excellent facilities (sleeping, eating, and meetings), and we are all very, very excited about the “Sharing Our Stories” conference, the very first one Yo Ghana! will have in Ghana. Dr. Ananga is one of the busiest and most dedicated persons I know, and Yo Ghana! is blessed that he takes so much time for us.

Elizabeth arrived late last night, and it is great to have her energy and intelligence and positive outlook on hand.

It's that time of the year when Yo Ghana! disseminates and then receives back roughly 2,000 student questionnaires.  One of my favorites answers so far, responding to the prompt of what she or he had learned about Africa from exchanging letters wrote: "There are other kids in the world."


Our world faces daunting challenges and stunning inequalities.  Smart, good people who devote their lives to studying these issues often disagree profoundly with each other on what course of action we should take.  But certainly an essential first step--and one that Americans, in particular, often neglect--is the realization that there are, indeed, "other kids in the world."  Who knows what that realization will lead to?


This is also the time of year of graduations when, in my role as Yo Ghana! go-fer, I drop by some schools at the year's end here in the U.S.  Today I got to see a student who had graduated the night before thank a teacher who had played, it seemed, a critical role in keeping him in school and helping him to graduate.  Our teachers in both the Pacific Northwest and Ghana and, for that matter, across the world, are often privy to a lot of suffering that the rest of us get to ignore.  But they also experience the satisfaction of knowing that their stubborn devotion to a student can be the difference between success and failure.  One of the very parts of being part of Yo Ghana! is getting to hang out with teachers.  Thank you, teachers for inspiring not only your students, but the rest of us.


I'll soon be in Ghana, along with our co-founder Elizabeth Fosler-Jones and with my life partner, Wendy, and we'll be traveling and meeting with hundreds of members of the Yo Ghana! community there, so in about week I'll be blogging every day or two.