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One of our teachers at our school wrote us about Ghanaian Independence Day. Ghana’s Independence Day occurred on March 6th, 1957 under Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. The Ayi Owen School has always been invited to take part in the anniversary. During the occasion, our teacher took photos of some of the participating students. Click here to read more about Ghana.
Loretta, one of our volunteers from this past summer, has created a great video about Ghanain culture and our school, the AYI Owen International School. To help us further our efforts and hopefully create other schools, please donate now.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95jeNnF5njc
ATTN: For One World Team
Please find below the most recent “Wish List” of items for the Ayi Owen School. We have a short deadline for these items to be collected.
* Donations Must Arrive by May 21
* Where to send donations:
FBO Loretta Cremmins, ATTN: Lizzy Edelstein
504 West 110th Street Apt 2A NY, NY 10025)
2009.05.11 PRIMARY WISH LIST:
1.   Max to pick up at Janie Owens: Tennis balls.
2.   A Stopwatch
3.   Playing Cards (for math games) (Plastic coated or laminated)
4.   Candy-land game
5.   Balls: Basketball, Volleyball
6.   Laser pointers (for sample of teachers)
7.   Large diameter pencils for Kg pupils
8.   Art materials. eg pad of multi-color paper
9.   Colored pencils
10.   Finger paints
11.   Basic bic pens
12.   Pens with different color inks… different color exterior.
13.   Monster mask (not too scary) and or wigs are useful for the drama group
14.   Blue T-shirts for all 27 teachers. A FEW MEDIUM BUT MOST XL.
15.   Middle school math sets (sample)
16.   Book of math word problems
17.   Book of fun math -primary arithmetic
18.   Book of math tricks, games
19.   DVDs for children’s literature, readers such as:
Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, Lion King, Charlotte’s Web, Ali Baba and the forty Thieves, Some Pig, Titanic, Aladdin, Julius Caesar, Hamlet. We also seek films about animals and wild life, nature and travel.
20.   Scotch 3M duct tape
21.   Side Walk chalk.
22.   Used trumpet
For the school orphan girls (age 9-12) living at the school:
1.   Small Mirrors
2.   Toothbrushes (soft)
3.   Used creams, perfumes
4.   Scrabble, Connect 4, Checkers
5.   Plastic Jewelry
1. Playing Cards (for math games) (Plastic coated or laminated)
2. Apple-Apple game
3. Candy-land game
4. BALLS: basketball, volleyball
5. Laser pointers (for sample of teachers)
6. Large diameter pencils for Kg pupils
7. Art materials. eg pad of multi-color paper
8. Colored pencils
9. Finger paints
10. Basic bic pens
11. Pens with different color inks… different color exterior.
12. Monster mask (not too scary) and or wigs are useful for the drama group
13. Blue T-shirts for all 27 teachers. A FEW MEDIUM BUT MOST XL.
14. Middle school math sets (sample)
15. Book of math word problems
16. Book of fun math -primary arithmetic
17. Book of math tricks, games
18. DVDs for children’s literature, readers such as:
Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, Lion King, Charlotte’s Web, Ali Baba and the forty Thieves, Some Pig, Titanic, Aladdin, Julius Caesar, Hamlet
29. Scotch 3M duct tape
20. Side Walk chalk.
21. Used trumpet
For the school orphans living at the school: “MOST ARE GIRLS AGED 9-12”
1. Small Mirrors
2. Toothbrushes (soft)
3. Used creams, perfumes
4. Scrabble, Connect 4, Checkers
5. Plastic Jewelry
ESPN has published an article about the Right to Dream Academy in Ghana, where kids are recruited for their soccer skills and given scholarships and opportunity. The article mentions tryouts in Tamale, which is abbout 200 miles north of Techiman , where our school is. Here is a link to the article.
NextEinstein is a program that provides the opportunity for Africans to develop as independent, creative problem solvers and teachers. Grants and scholarships allow students throughout Africa to attend the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences and be part of building a better continent.
It was created from the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences as a part of their outreach to new students and to spread the learning of math and science throughout Africa.
One day I went with one of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) members to see what car repair and maintenance is like in Ghana. There only a few vehicle types available in Ghana, and the vehicles are repaired by lot’s of little shops in the yard. Each shop had it’s own specialty such as spare parts, welding, or a small machine shop. The government also sponsored a machine shop for larger things such as bending sheet metal for an entire car hood.
The purpose of the trip was to see what buses in Ghana look like for potential purchase for use at the school. One of the main issues for parents with kids at the school according to the PTA members is the cost of getting the kids to school every day. So we are currently looking at what finances are needed to support the purchase and maintenance of a bus. The idea is that the bus is paid for by the people that ride it, so it should be self-supported by the community. There is a gallery with more images of the facility.
The following are pictures of a car repair center in Ghana.
While traveling through Ghana to our destination, there were a few police checkpoints and construction. The construction was interesting because it seemed like a good way to keep the local economy stimulated, where otherwise cars would not stop. There were lots of street vendors, my favorite foods were the spicy hard boiled eggs and the bananas. The bananas in Ghana had all the taste of bananas in the United States, but half the size. We created a gallery of the trip and video to show what some of the countryside looks like.
Another event we went to in Ghana was the Fokuo Festival. This is a religious ceremony in a small village. The basics are that there is a high priest that sends up the wishes for the year to the heavens, then there is a celebration once the results come back. That celebration was very interesting and consisted of elephant guns being shot into the air, a chicken sacrifice and lots of drumming, drinking, and dancing.
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The charcoal on the men was collected from the fires of several of the wives. It was ground up and mixed with water and spread over their bodies. A small loin cloth, made from the bark of the homaben shrub, called danta was also worn.
I think the children in this neighborhood don’t see a lot of white people, so they would touch my hand to see if it felt the same as theirs. We created a few videos of the drumming and have a picture gallery of the event.
