Worawora Secondary School: The story

When the executive director of PACE Ghana, Kofi Addai, was home visiting the village of Worawora in 2012 he saw that the pre K and kindergarten school building had collapsed and that the middle school students were attending school in bamboo structures. The teachers at the school did not have space to prepare their lessons or grade their papers. They ate lunch under a nearby tree because there was no room for them at the school. After seeing the state of the school, Kofi interacted with teacher, village elders and several members in the community about the school’s poor conditions and how it was having a negative impact on the children and teachers. After the conversation Kofi was inspired to do something about the school to improve the lives of the children in Worawora. The seed of something wonderful had been planted. Although the situation looked overwhelming, Kofi starting talking to people in Worawora about ideas to build a new middle school and then returned to the U.S. and shared his vision with PACE Ghana and other partners in the community.

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Over the next couple of years ideas were developed, support from the elders and community in Worawora was received, and the first small group of four people from Syracuse, NY travelled to work on the middle school project in July 2014. The team saw firsthand the condition of the local middle school classrooms. This was a very difficult environment for students to learn and teachers to inspire students. As a first step in the project the 2014 team joined the community members, teachers and students to start laying the foundation for the school. Early one morning over 200 community members showed up to dig and haul dirt to fill in the foundation. Working side by side with the people of Worawora was powerful and inspiring. By the time this team left in late July, 2014 the foundation had been laid for a new school with three classrooms and a teacher/administration room, but there was still a long way to go (Photo 3). We envisioned that it would take another 4-5 years to complete the building before the students could have a safe place to learn and grow.

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Over the next year and a half progress on the school project was slow but steady as funds were raised by PACE Ghana and partners and committed individuals in Ghana continued to move the project forward. Walls went up and then the roof was installed. Many of the local builders and suppliers in Worawora provided services and materials at very cheap rates as one way to contribute to this project for children in the community. Early in 2016 PACE Ghana and their partners started to discuss what it would take to complete the project in time for the students to occupy the school in August of 2016, about two years ahead of schedule. There was a lot of work to complete and funds needed to raised, but with growing excitement around the project, this goal seemed possible.

To complete the task many people and partners in both North America and Ghana pulled together. In May 2016 a group of students from Fordham University traveled to Worawora and purchased materials to plaster both the inside and outside building. A team of nine people including several PACE Ghana board members and partners from First Baptist Church in Syracuse traveled to Worawora. They arrived late one night after a long two day journey from Syracuse, NY. The next morning the team was tired but excited and anxious to go and see the school. As the team walked through the town and into the clearing the school appeared in front of us and it was an amazing and very moving site. Two years earlier some of these team members had seen nothing more than a stack of blocks in a field and a trench marking out where the foundation would go. Now there was a building with walls, a roof and a few windows . Over the next few days the team painted the building and local installed windows and doors (Photo 6 and 7). At the same time as the building was being completed a team from the community was organizing a commissioning event.

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The commissioning of the school was a huge community celebration with several hundred people in attendance including children from several schools, community elders, government officials and religious leaders from across the community. A highlight of this event was when a fifth grade student got up in front of his teachers, community elders and government officials and gave a wonderful speech about how the school would make a difference in his life and the lives of many children for years to come. At the end of the event the elders and government officials cut the ribbon at the school and officially opened the building. What started as a vision that Kofi had four years earlier after conversations with a few community members and elders was now a four classroom school that represents a new future for children in Worawora. While the celebration occurred it was also clear that the project is not quite done. The students needed desks so they could start using the building. To date PACE Ghana and local partners in Worawora have built 60 desks for the children, but another 60 are needed to fill the classrooms.

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This project has been possible because of the involvement of many different people and organizations in Worawora, Syracuse, New York City and many other locations in North America. Each and every one of them has played an essential role in the process that is now improving educational opportunities for students in Worawora, Ghana.