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| Ciren Deer Park Students and Staff in Ghana |
New classrooms and toilet block thanks
to the efforts of Deer Park volunteers.
A volunteer team of staff and Year 10 pupils at Cirencester Deer Park School returned on April 19th from a life-changing trip to help children in the coastal community of Woe in Ghana’s Volta region.
A volunteer team of staff and Year 10 pupils at Cirencester Deer Park School returned on April 19th from a life-changing trip to help children in the coastal community of Woe in Ghana’s Volta region.
The African Adventures Foundation, started in 2009, began working in Ghana in 2013, where education is severely under-funded and resourced. Instead of going to school children in the Volta region often help their parents from a very early age with agricultural duties to help provide for their families.
The Deer Park team spent 14 months
fundraising for their two project schools, Rhema Abutia School and Dedzidi
Community School, and during their two-week long visit in April, the team
taught lessons, organised sports activities and worked to make bricks, concrete
the floor of a new canteen, plaster new classrooms and build new toilet
cubicles.
Siva Vordzorgbe, founder of The Young
Shall Grow International that runs the volunteer hostel, thanked the team for
their hard work and enthusiasm and was particularly grateful for the donation
of toilet pans that will transform the experience of the children at Dedzidi
Community School, who previously had to squat in the sand as there was no
sanitary provision at all.
The team’s time in Ghana was extremely
humbling and memorable. On Easter Sunday the volunteers were privileged to
visit the village of Lolito, whose community faces significant challenges
regarding access to water and employment, poor living conditions, health and
wellbeing. Allegedly the first white people to show interest in their plight,
it was explained to the team that their visit had been the answer to the
community’s prayers.
Many of the pupils returned with a new
perspective. “Volunteering in Ghana was incredible”, said pupil Sam. “It’s
definitely changed the way I think about life back home in the UK. Seeing the
children’s smiles and reactions to the simplest of things made me realise just
how grateful and appreciative they are about the things we can often just take
for granted.”
Headteacher, Chiquita Henson added: “ We
are very fortunate to have experienced first hand that this project is working
and really helping the children of Woe. A huge thank you to everyone who
supported and contributed to our fundraising and to St James Place, D&J
Sports, GH Knight, Cirencester Town Football Club and Cirencester Rugby Club
for the generous donations they made. The gifts were very much appreciated and
I am confident that they will be put to good use.”
Cirencester Deer Park has kept in
touch with the staff and pupils at both Rhema Abutia and Dedzidi and are keen
to forge long lasting links with both schools and the local community. So watch
this space…their involvement in Ghana has really only just begun!
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