We startet our journey in Zurich, Switzerland, where we flew with KLM to Amsterdam to catch the following flight to Accra, the capital of Ghana. The flight was smooth, and we landed in Accra in the evening. To get a first feeling for the country and settling in after the flight, we spent the first night in the Mövenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra, which offers services on European standards, so one is well rested for the journey from Accra to Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana and the location of the school. We drove about eight hours and gained lots of impressions of the country, its people and nature.

In Kumasi, our accommodation was the “Rosewood Cottage”, a hotel located in a little forest between the school and the city centre of Kumasi, as seen on the pictures below. There, we were cooked for the whole day. The day started with a full English breakfast including toast, eggs and beans, together with tea, coffee or hot chocolate powder and a fruit juice. The staff then gave us each day a lunch to go, mostly rice with chicken and an additional side dish. In the evening, we got large portions of European style dinners, such as pasta, rice, stew or fries and other meals.

In total, we were in Ghana for three weeks in July. We had a rough plan on what we wanted to achieve in these weeks. Since we arrived on Wednesday, the first few days were intended for getting settled in Ghana and familiarising ourselves with the school and our surroundings. After that, during the first full week, we should renovate and paint a wall so that the overall appearance of the school looks much better. Then, in the second full week, we spent time in the classrooms, especially in grade 5, to teach the kids, get an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the Ghanaian school system and try to solve some of the problems in their previous learning experience. On weekends, we explored the city of Kumasi, got to know traditions and cultural practices and recharged for the coming weeks. However, this is just a proposed programme. We were very free to choose whatever activities and work we liked.

So after we arrived in Kumasi, we got a first look at the school we’ve previously only seen in pictures. The area around the school is rather quiet, it’s a village-like atmosphere. The schoolground is neat and clean, with many trees and spacious grounds. You have place to roam and do all kinds of sports like playing football, floorball, calisthenics and even indoor sport.

We realised quickly that this project is something different from everything other we’ve seen previously in Ghana. The infrastructure is immaculate and Ibi Oubda spent a lot of his own money into something that really benefits the children attending the school. The school has its own water filtration system, which makes it safe to drink the water, unlike the majority of the rest of the country. There is also room for a boarding school and senior high school, all equipped with showers and ready to use but due to changes in the Ghana school system and the following loss of many senior high students, this part of the school had to shut down. So for now only the elementary school is being operated.

Now back to working and fixing the broken wall so that the school looks superb again:

Due to the extreme moisture and heavily changing weather around the equator, cement and paint don’t remain in perfect condition for long. If you paint a wall one year, you’ll have to do it the next year all over again. This is how the wall looked upon our arrival:

The wall wasn’t painted yet like the rest of the walls around the school and there were cracks and crumbled areas.

So in order to paint the wall, we first had to fill the cracks with putty, let it dry and then put several coats of paint on the wall.

We went to a shop near the road to buy the putty. This is the typical way of buying things in Ghana and a lot of other African countries. The streets are filled with market stalls and little shops, all trying to sell their products. This makes it extremely convenient to get all the things you need because you just drive by, shop all your things and get going again.

So we worked on the wall, the schoolchildren constantly checking if we’re doing a good job and putting a smile on our faces on our breaks. In the meantime, Ibi supplied us with fresh coconuts and bananas to keep spirits high.

After a few days, the wall was finished and painted in several coats of white and grey. We had something to be very proud of and the school looks much better now:

On the first weekend, we had the chance to explore the city of Kumasi a bit. As it was a Sunday, which is very important for all the Christians in Ghana (approximately 71%), we went to see the St. Peters Cathedral, also known as Roman Hill. It is one of the most important catholic churches in Ghana and West Africa. It’s truly remarkable how important religion is to Ghanaians. The whole Sunday is reserved for church and religion, so you barely see any work and trade being done on Sunday. 

After church, we went to the Cultural Center in Kumasi, where it’s possible to see a lot of traditional values and craftsmanship. It was really interesting to get a look into the history and culture of Ghana.

Fast forward to the second weekend, skipping the painting we described previously:

We went into the city a second time, this time to the Kumasi Central Market. It is the biggest and most important market in the whole of West Africa, with over 8000 shops and 20’000 vendors. The market consists of two main building with 4 stories full of shops. For us as foreigners, this was almost not comprehensible. The sheer amount of products, people, shops and experiences was something we will never forget.

We also had a look at the B.I.S Kindergarten, which is also in the village of Bosomtwe, just about a three-minute walk from the school. It was such a pleasure seeing the little kids just playing and having fun in a safe environment without having to fear any danger.

Moving on to the second full week of our stay, we went into the classrooms to see what the students are learning, where their strengths are, what we can improve and how the Ghanaian school system compares to Europe. We focussed on grade 5 to gain the best understanding. We were very free to choose whatever we wanted to teach and how we approached each lesson. Our approach was to try as many different teaching styles as possible to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the children. All these styles were implemented in lessons the children could decide. We asked them what they already knew, what they wanted to learn and where their interests were. 

Each day we started by repeating what we’ve learnt the day before, then the first half of the day was for school and learning something new and in the afternoon we did some sports.

On the first day our lesson was geography, since they’ve told us they haven’t really had geography yet. So we started by explaining the continents and countries in a playful approach. After that, we learned what makes countries unique and how we can describe a country. We gathered information with the students and showed them pictures of all the things they’ve learnt on our computers:

The programme for the second day was biology. This time, we divided the children into groups of two, gave them a text about an organ and their job was to find the important information in the text and make a poster out of it. In a second step, they should explain their organ to the class in a presentation. It was lovely seeing the quick progress in understanding the text and forming something in their own words out of it.

And because this report doesn’t do justice to all the experiences we made, here are some pictures that didn’t make it into the text: