“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the moreplaces you’ll go.” ― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!We believe Reading is the foundation of education. If u can’t read and understand how do you write meaningfully? This was what some team members asked themselves when they experienced the poor reading abilities of some children.How did we do this?We decided to visit a rural school at a time.
To begin this sustainable project, we chose the Comboni Basic School at Dabala Junction in the Volta Region of Ghana. All arrangements were made and on the 10th of October the Team was ready to #EmpowerTheMinds of some pupils. Team #SNGH traveled from Accra and got to the school in the Volta Region at about 11:00am and we were welcomed warmly by the Headmaster Mr. Samson Kpodonu. Very grateful for our efforts, he expressed the schools preparedness to corporate with us and wanted us to get to work immediately.So we rolled up our sleeves and the 6 member StartingNowTeam went on a quick familiarization tour of the school.
Each Team Member just met with various students on an individual basis and interacted with them.When the Pupils from Basic 1 and 2 (for whom this project is originally meant) were ready, we grouped them in one class, moved in our Teaching and Learning Materials (TLM’s) and immediately got to work.Our aim? To help these pupils learn how to read in a very fun and exciting way using the Montessori system of teaching, a technique most of the urban schools adopt.
With the assistance from the in-house teaches of both classes, we first of all tested the ability of these lovely children to read and it was sad to note that the majority of the pupils could not read a sentence. Another disturbing phenomenon was that, there was little or no difference between the pupils in Basic 2 and those in Basic 1 in terms of their ability to read. This indicated that, the pupils may just be going through school instead of letting school go through them.The task ahead was more than we thought. As a Team, we worked our way into the hearts and minds of these pupils and began to teach them gradually some techniques to employ when they attempted to read and how to understand what they read. After spending quality time and motivating these kids with new Reading Books, Pencils, Candies and more, we were beginning to see some improvement.
At the end of our two and a half hour session with the children, we were glad to see that these children were showing signs of improvement. The gratification that all our efforts were already yielding results was evident on every Team Member’s face.After the session with the pupils in the basic school, the Team moved to the Junior High School Block to execute Phase 2 of our mission to the school. As a Team, we notice that, growing up, Adolescents are barely spoken to about Reproductive Health and the issues that come with this stage of life.
We also noticed that most pupils are not aware of what paths to take in terms of furthering their education from the Junior High Schools onwards.So we put together a presentation of these two thematic areas: Reproductive Health and Choice of programs to pursue in SHS and Mentorship.This presentation was made to about 80 pupils from the Junior High School 1 and 3. Very interactively, and with the assistance of their in-house teaches, Team SNGH took the student through issues of Reproductive Health and also Choice of programs to pursue in SHS.Though the day was a success, we were hit with the realization that there is so much to be done in terms of impacting lives of others and the team went home with the zeal to do better to touch the lives of people who need it the most.
The #ReadRightProject was put together by StartingNow’s Team Ghana and was lovingly supported by some individuals. To all who made this happen, to the Ghana Education Service, to the Management and Staff of the Comboni Basic School at Dabala Junction and the various people who put their shoulders to the wheel, we say “Thank You!” “Akpe!” “Y3 Da Wa Si!” “Oyi wa Don!”
