AGAPE CHILD CARE SCHOOL PROJECT

SUMMARY

The Agape Child Care Project seeks to establish a day care school to enroll children of school going ages who have to walk far for their schooling.

No social intervention program is addressing this issue, and VHCF after visiting the village and listening to them, decided to embark on a project to take care of their educational needs.

The place where the project is going to be carried out is called Dintigi, a village under Nalerigu, North East of Ghana. The village is a farming community where the men engage in seasonal farming activities, the women sell firewood to take care of their families, and the children are required to just stay at home.

 The chief of the village with his people as well as volunteers of VHCF who was also on Mission

BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM TO BE ADDRESSED

Communities in northern Ghana face numerous challenges, of which Education is not an exception.

There is no school in the village and this makes it difficult for their children to walk far for their schooling. In northern Ghana, parents often send their kids to school at the age of 6 years, and since Dintigi does not have a school, their children at the age of 6 cannot walk far for schooling. The Government of Ghana is unable to distribute schools evenly throughout the country, and this poses difficulties to the indigenous villages to educate their children.

Problems in the northern Ghana communities: 

1. School-aged children cannot walk far for their schooling.
2. Children who are able to walk to nearby towns to access education are also being challenged due to rain during the rainy season.
3. Teenage pregnancy and early marriage is rampant in this community.
4. Some of the children grow up and travel to urban centres looking for jobs that does not exist.

The community household earns below $1 per day.Their earnings are based on the farm produce, and sometimes unfavorable weather conditions make their yield small. Their medical bills, feeding, shelter etc. also comes from same farm produce. All these factors make their living hard.

Few non-government organizations deal with other humanitarian issues such as food security, human rights etc., however, these educational problems of the community are not given attention.

VHCF volunteers crossing a river to the village of Dintigi

Women of the village in a meeting with volunteers of the Voluntary Human Care Foundation

Faruk (Founder) of VHCF reacting to the concerns of the people

These kids are all of school going ages but simply there is no school to absorb these kids. Meanwhile they cannot walk to the nearby town in order to access education.

Voluntary Human Care Foundation (VHCF) upon visiting this community on several occasions interacted with the chief and members of the village and concerns were raised, ranging from Education to water and sanitation. But upon all the numerous challenges faced by the village, priority was given to Education. Wuni Alhassan from the village said “Our wards having no access to education is our greatest challenge” he said this when he was interacting with officials from VHCF. Several of them kept repeating it to the extent that Voluntary Human Care Foundation (VHCF) on the 22rd of August, 2011 decided to embark on a child care project to provide school for their kids. VHCF believed that this project will go a long way to increase the literacy rate in the village and also eradicate several of the problems being confronted by the by the community.

The Goal of the Project

The goal of the project is to transform the life of children of Dintigi through providing them with free Education.

Objectives of the project

• §  To establish a day care school for the kids of Dintigi free of charge
• §  Provide books and other learning materials to the children, all at no cost.
• §  Giving this kids quality education.
• §  Sponsoring children who distinguish themselves to per sue high education

Benefits

• §  Parents can spend more time in other activities to earn more income to develop their families and the community at large.

• §  These kids will be equipped with education and will intend help their community. 
• §  Social vices and teenage pregnancies would be reduced drastically. 

Implementation

Voluntary Human Care Foundation is embarking on fund raising activities to employ teachers and other officials to commerce the project come January 16th 2012. A church building is going to be used as a classroom. Plans are in place to raise more funds to build a school infrastructure. The kids who are to be enrolled into the school are 62, consisting of 32 males and 30 females.