School for Life undertakes Leadership and Advocacy Training for Female Local Committee Members

By Abdul-Mumin

As part of School for Life’s mission of working to improve and sustain access to and quality of basic education in Ghana through functional literacy and advocacy as a means to address poverty, underdevelopment and gender inequality; advocacy and leadership training is being organized for Local female committee members across three districts (Tolon, East Gonja and Nanumba-north districts) . The Local Committees were set up by School for Life in the operational communities to oversee the school for life program in their respective communities. Each committee has five people with a minimum of three females. 

The purpose of the leadership and advocacy training is to imbue in the female committee members the requisite skills and capacities needed to take up leadership roles in their communities and districts. Importantly, the training was also meant to encourage females to rise up to the challenge and advocate strongly towards addressing the needs of the communities. It is only when the majority of people in our communities and districts consciously advocate and influence policy initiatives that their real needs and problems can be addressed. Because of this, and in view of the overriding fact that females constitute more than fifty percent of people in our communities, the training was designed purposely for the female committee members.

Being a part of the training session in the Kali zone in the Tolon district, the women were very informed on the topic and shared with each other the strategies to use in advocacy and the numerous benefits they could accrue from advocacy works. These benefits, one participant summarized as “promoting unity, facilitating development and ensuring peace and stability.” These amazing revelations further consolidated School for Life’s belief that when women are informed, empowered and given the chance to lead development process, they are indeed capable and will lead us to our dream land.

This experience and many others are the reasons why we encourage everyone to join us and join hands towards building the capacity of women in leadership and advocacy to promote national development. 

Abdul-Mumin joins the School for Life Team!

My name is Abdul-Mumin Ahmed, and I am the newly appointed Communications and Advocacy Officer for the School for Life Program. In my new position here at School for Life, I will be in charge of managing the School for Life web page and the School for Life page on Facebook, supporting SfL’s Pedagogical research officer to undertake advocacy based research, improving School for Life’s relationship with the media and development partners, assisting in the development of the School for Life’s newsletter, organizing and coordinating advocacy capacity building for School for Life field staff and Monitoring advocacy interventions at the local level.

As a new member of the School for Life family, I find this position an extremely challenging one, especially because it is a newly created position with a lot of expectations.  Being the first person to take it up, I am greatly challenged to put up my best in projecting the image and good works of School for Life. In view of the nature of the position, I will be working closely to support the Deputy Manager for Advocacy and Gender, Lawrencia Dakurah-Abakisi.

I was born in Walewale, the district capital of the west mamprusi district, in Northern Ghana; where I undertook my primary and junior secondary school education. I continued senior secondary school education in business senior high school in Tamale and proceeded to Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology(KNUST) where I  studied BSc Development Planning. While studying at KNUST, I was a member of the KNUST students’ parliament, Ghana Association of Student Planners-KNUST and a prominent member of the Student’s Welfare Project. My participation in a number of advocacy works at Students’ Welfare Project lead me to nursing a dream of working in advocacy interventions. This dream,  is what triggered me to taking up the role here at School for Life.

My coming here, in my estimation, appropriately fulfils the purpose of the adage that holds that “we must always be fueled by our passion, beyond all other considerations”. My enduring passion for development works back in KNUST urged me to take up an internship with TCAI (Teacher Community Assistant Initiative), a project that was jointly implemented by School for Life and Innovations for Poverty Action across selected districts in Ghana. The project sought to determine the best method of remedial education or otherwise that could improve learning levels in basic schools. My involvement in the project continued after I completed school and ended in 2013 when the project implementation came to an end. I also engaged myself with Camfed-Ghana (an NGO that supports female education in a number of districts in Ghana) as an assistant in the Education Programme Office.

Having attained these fits of experience in development works, I finally decided to settle with School for Life as Communications and Advocacy Officer for two crucial reasons. Firstly, to continue the pursuance of development works that helps people build their potential through education. And importantly, to fulfill my long nurtured dream of working in advocacy interventions.

Service to the Nation: Musah Alhassan

School for Life is currently running a trial to use National Service Personnel to lead our community based classes.  Classes led by community members (known as facilitators) have been a core component of School for Life’s values since inception, but as our program expands we are seeking to trial some innovative measures to ensure all out of school children in Ghana can achieve their potential though education.

A couple of months ago, twelve National Service Personnel, all of whom are recent graduates of education programmes at universities in Ghana were posted to our organisation.  After undergoing training with our volunteer facilitators they were posted to communities across the Savelugu Nanton district in the Northern Region.  This morning we met with them to hear about their experiences so far, and some of the challenges they are facing. 

A lot of challenges were raised by the group, as well as some successes.  One of the most successful experiences to date was shared with us by Musah Alhassan, about his posting in the Chahiyili community.  Musah, a recent Diploma of Education Graduate from the University of Winneba, moved into the Chahiyilli community soon after his posting.  In just a few months, he has established himself as an important and respected member of the community there.  In addition to taking the School for Life classes in the afternoons, he spends his mornings volunteering as a teacher at the nearby formal school.

He was honest about the challenges he had faced, but also positive about the experience.  He told the group that if he hadn’t lived in the community he would never have understood all the reasons why the learners he teaches struggle to go to school.  He gave us one example of a girl child who was regularly missing classes.  He eventually went to see her mother, who explained that she was discouraging her from attending as she needed the girl to help take care of baby due to be born in a few months’ time, and also feared she would not be able to afford the school fees should the child wish to continue her education after the programme.  Musah was able to convince the mother to let the girl attend, and promised to help her apply for a scholarship when the time to attend formal school came.

When congratulating Musah for his hard work after our meeting, he surprised us when he explained the source of his passion for his work.  Having grown up in a community without a school, Musah did not expect to benefit from education.  From a young age, he helped to support his family by taking care of animals.  However, in 1998, he joined a School for Life class in his community!  Musah remembers that the classes back then were not like they are today – his class was held during the night, because at the time there were so few teachers available to teach in his mother tongue, Dagbani, that they had to travel from far away after they had taught elsewhere.

Following the nine months of the School for Life Programme, Musah integrated into the formal school at Gushigu, where he continued on to Junior High School.  After this, he went to Tamale Polytechnic to study welding and fabrication.  However, Musah’s passion for education led him to dream of purusing future studies in education and to become a teacher.  He told me “Because I came from School for Life, I put my efforts into my work in the community.  I want my brothers to benefit from it.  I want to inform the image (for my learners), and shown them that I was able to attend future educational institutions because of the opportunity School for Life gave to me.”

 

By Courtney Irwin

School for Life/Tzedek Education Quality Initiative Project (EQUIP)

By Abdulai Imoro, EQUIP Project Coordinator, School for Life

 The EQUIP Programme seeks to improve the quality of education in selected schools in Northern Region.  The program is aimed at improving learning outcomes in schools; cultivating reading habits in children; promoting independent learning; and building confidence in teachers though the following interventions:

·       Training of selected teachers in learner- centered, mother – tongue, gender sensitive teaching, and the creation of teaching and learning materials from local sources and teaching of reading and writing skills

·       Training of head teachers in aspects of school management

·       Training of Ghana Education Service school supervisors to perform their roles more effectively

·       Provision of materials of various sorts to the schools to promote the culture of reading among children

·       Conducting competitions and assessments to test performance and achievements

·       Organize orientation workshop for SMC/PTA Executive members on their roles

The project seeks to integrate solutions to the inhibitors and shortcomings that prevent the achievement of quality education in rural primary schools, building on solutions that have been tried and proven but have not been previously brought together in a single programme. In order for EQUIP to be able to give the treatment above to beneficiary schools, the following strategies are used:

·       Phonic/syllabic approach

·       Use of games to teach both Literacy and Numeracy

·       Child- centered approach

·       Word problems to teach numeracy

·       Use of songs and rhymes in teaching both Literacy and Numeracy

·       Use of relevant teaching and learning materials to explain basic concepts.

The School for Life/Tzedek EQUIP programme started as a pilot project in Saboba and Cheriponi Districts. During the pilot, Ten schools were chosen as EQUIP schools in each of the pilot Districts. After the pilot, the project extended its coverage to include two new districts; i.e. Savelugu District and Kumbungu District were added to the beneficiary districts of EQUIP.

Whiles the project extended its coverage by adding more districts, it increased the number of beneficiary schools in each of the existing districts. Thus, the number of beneficiary schools was increased from ten during the pilot to twenty new schools, in the existing districts. In all, twenty new schools were added in each of Saboba and Cheriponi districts when it extended its coverage to new districts. 

EQUIP is a Comic Relief funded project which seeks to complement the efforts of the Government in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES), School for Life, and the Cheriponi, Saboba, Savelugu and Kumbungu District Assemblies.  The key stakeholders/partners of EQUIP include; The Ghana Education Directorates of beneficiary districts, District Assemblies of Beneficiary districts, heads of schools, SMC/PTA, teachers as well as pupils.  Whiles the above institutions/personalities are partnering, School for Life is an Implementing partner of Tzedek, which initiates policies/programs with partners and implements the projects on the ground.

The School for Life/Tzedek EQUIP is implemented by Project Staff made up of four (4) District Coordinators, a Project Coordinator and Project Manager. All district coordinators report to the Project Coordinator who in turn reports to the Project Manager. The Management of School for Life, exercises oversight responsibility over all EQUIP project staff.

In order to determine the success of the programme, baseline, mid-line and end-line studies will be conducted, which will include comparisons to other approaches; e.g. teacher training, learning outcomes by learners in a control group which receives no quality education strategies.  Within these approaches, several elements will be tested. There will be six elements including;

·       Pupils’ phonic knowledge

·       Pupils’ alphabetic knowledge

·       Pupils ability to read simple text

·       Pupils’ ability to read and comprehend

·       Pupils ability to recognize numbers

·       Pupils’ ability to do simple calculations

Results of these evaluations will be incorporated into future programme development efforts.

 

Teachers participating in teacher training sessions

 

Teacher delivers findings from group discussions to the class

Group work encourages participation

Savelugu-Nanton District Coordinator Ibrahim “Kung Fu” Issahaku drags his motorbike out of the mud on the road to the Sana community.  Despite the challenges of travel in the rainy season, over the coming weeks Kung Fu will visit around 1000 children across the district to find out if they were able to enrol in former schools following the nine month School for Life Programme.  

School for Life Receives a “Northern Business Excellence Award’’

By Muniru A. Rahaman

17th August 2013

SfL was given an award as one of the Organisations which are contributing to the development of Ghana and Northern Ghana in particular in various areas of endeavour. The citation on the award recognises SfL for it’s “...commitment and Dedication to improving access to Quality Basic Education in Ghana”.

The awards ceremony was organised by Ridmut Consult in collaboration with Savana Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), Northern Regional Coordinating Council, the Northern Development Forum (NDF) and other industry partners. This program was designed to honour private, public and non-profit sectors including individuals for their contributions towards the development of Northern Ghana.  A day prior to the awards ceremony, the PM was invited by the same organisation to make a presentation at a young Entrepreneurs Development Seminars. There were other presenters at the seminar. The PM’s presentation was entitled “Contribution of School for Life to Growing the Youth”.

The award to SfL was received by the Programme Manager. The Picture of the presentation is seen below. 

Top Left: Programme Manager (S. O. Saaka) receiving the Award.

Top Right: A picture of the Award.

School for Life offers CBE Certificate to kids in Savelugu-Nanton District

Check out our news article on 107.1 Kesmi FM:

School for Life offers CBE Certificate to kids in Savelugu-Nanton District