A school that could really use, well, a school

The second grade students were copying words into their ten-cent notebooks when I saw that Isaac was not writing anything. When I asked him where his notebook was, he told me that it was his brother’s turn to use it that day. I tore a piece of paper out of my own notebook for him, but a short while later I saw that Isaac was again not writing when he should have been. I told him that he was supposed to be copying the board and he replied, “My paper is finished.” He looked down at the sheet on his desk that was now soaked in mud: the wind had blown it right into the puddle next to his bench. This is one very small example of the many problems that come from operating a school without a school building.

The first day I visited my new internship with the Global Ghana Youth Network, a completely free primary school in one of Accra’s poorest neighborhoods, the organization’s founder and director Mollishmael Gabah brought me to two different places. First we headed to the school’s current location: a fenced-in yard under a mango tree. Each of the school’s five classes consists of a few benches and tables facing one small white board on a rickety easel. After I got to look around the school and meet the kids, we went to what will eventually be GGYN’s first actual school building. Nothing had been built yet besides the concrete foundation, but Mollishmael showed me around nonetheless, pointing out what every classroom would eventually be. The school building today looks exactly like it did then; construction on the school had actually stopped during the summer when GGYN ran out of funds.

Of course, there are far more severe consequences to not having a school building than the daily problems like Isaac’s paper falling in mud. When there is rain there is no school, and if the school yard floods, which isn’t uncommon, school can be canceled for days. The school has experienced several severe floods that have caused lasting damage, including one particularly bad one last spring whose consequences are still felt at the school today. That one flood destroyed essentially all of the school’s resources – according to GGYN’s website, “Every book, every piece of paper, every bench and table had been ruined.” Given that the school is so underfunded that the director isn’t even granted a salary, the damage incurred by that one flood set the school basically back to square one.

One of the things that I find the most difficult, though, is that the lack of a school building means that the kids are constantly surrounded by distractions. There are no physical barriers between the classes except a few feet of space (if even that), so it’s always a struggle to keep the second graders engaged when there is a kid from the nursery wandering into our area, a teacher comforting a bawling student, another class singing, etc. The students are also squeezed into the too few benches and tables that GGYN has to offer them, so I have to spend a good amount of time mediating fights over personal space. Additionally, there is a path right next to the school that sees a decent number of pedestrians that are accompanied by a decent number of cows. When the cows pass, my students all run over to the fence and yell, “MOO!” It’s adorable, but getting them to settle back down can be difficult especially on a day like today when the cows somehow got into the yard.

Despite all of these challenges, GGYN is an amazing organization that does make a true difference in these kids’ lives. Many of the kids would have no other choice for school, because even though Ghana’s government promises free education, many areas only have schools that still charge for uniforms, books, and sometimes even under-the-table admission. Some of the students come to GGYN without ever having been in school before or knowing how to read and write, even though they are old enough to be in middle school. There a short video on GGYN’s website (www.ggyn.org) called “Under the Mango Tree” that has some of the students talk about what difference GGYN made in their life. One of the boys from the video, Joshua, is now eighteen and volunteers daily at the school. He said in the video that he didn’t like school at first, but at least judging by how hard he’s trying to teach himself Spanish, he now has an evident passion for learning. The video also goes into a lot about the background of the school, from what life is like for the kids in that neighborhood to how Mollishmael started the organization from almost nothing in his late teens.

I wish that everyone could see what an inspiring organization this is, so I guess that’s why I’ve decided to dedicate a blog specifically to my time that I spend volunteering here. There’s so much that goes on daily at the school that I feel is worth attention, and I’m lucky enough to have had a great education to teach me how to write about it. I promise that most of the posts won’t be about the school’s problems like this one has been, but seeing that I’m incredibly bad about blogging on a regular basis, I felt that I should get some of the most pressing things out first.

I’ve named the blog “Striped Purple Uniforms” for a couple of reasons. You’ve probably guessed this already, but one is that the kids wear striped purple uniforms. Second, the uniforms are nothing like what you’d see in America, which definitely can be said of the school, too. The purple and white stripes are also very happy looking, which is fitting given how ecstatic the kids looked when they received them on the first day that I volunteered. The most important reason that I chose this title, though, is that the uniforms are one of the many steps that the school is taking toward giving these kids the best school experience possible. Unfortunately the uniforms are more of a step in progress – only about 50% of the students have them yet – but they’re a step nonetheless.