The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Teachers leaving PD sessions with classroom resources

Early one morning, the ­rising sun was casting long shadows across the dusty road in Damongo, a small town and the capital of West Gonja district, in northern Ghana. As I walked, six-year-old Ophelia came running through the roadside bushes, greeted me with the usual “Abruni! Abruni!” (Hello, white person!) and took my hand. Grandmother soon appeared and explained that although the school year was almost over, Ophelia was not in school because the family had not yet been able to buy a uniform.

Can you imagine being denied an education because of a five-dollar uniform?

This June, one of our scholarship students, Alfreda Ajonomoh, spoke to a gathering of scholarship girls. She told them they must never give up hope, no matter how bleak the circumstances, and she went on to talk about her life. She had been given away at birth. At the age of four, she began work; she was thirteen before she began her education. She was allowed to go to school for half-days, and now, in her early twenties, has completed two years of electrical engineering. Of her 48 classmates at Sunyani Polytechnic, she is one of two women. She is also top of her class.

Tools for Schools Africa Foundation works to improve the quality of life in the northern region of Ghana by enhancing educational opportunities and improving access to education for girls like Ophelia. The board consists mostly of retired Alberta teachers, all of whom donate their time and efforts. Financial support from the Alberta Teachers’ Association has helped us accomplish the following in the past ten years:

1. Scholarship support for 63 girls, 7 of whom are now in postsecondary studies. One girl, Aloysita Gbanso, is in medicine.
2. In collaboration with University of Manitoba Faculty of Architecture students, the construction of a boarding house for girls from rural areas who come to attend junior high.
3. Set-up of three libraries and three high school computer labs.
4. Teacher training conferences for 700 local teachers. This included distribution of African literature and teacher’s manuals written for African schools, where teachers often have classes of 80 or more students, no photocopiers and few books.
5. The writing, publishing and distribution of a children’s picture book entitled 9 Degrees North: The ABC’s of North Ghana. Also distributed were soccer balls and more than 1,200 jerseys.

Again, on behalf of the board, I would like to express my most sincere thanks to all for helping us provide just a little hope in a faraway part of the world.  If you want to find out more about what we do or contribute to a scholarship, please visit our website at www.tfs-africa.org. We’d love you to join the Tools for Schools Africa Foundation family.