On June 3, Camfed-sponsored school girls teamed up with former Ghanaian World Cup football (soccer) players Mohammed Gargo and Shilla Illiasu to play a friendly match against their teachers, headmasters and district officials. The match ended in a draw, but it was a great win because of its much bigger goal: promoting education and enrolling more than 1,300 children in school in Ghana’s rural district of Nanumba South through the 1GOAL: Education for All campaign.
Part of Camfed Ghana’s innovative Interactive Learning Roadshow, the match was just one of the event’s many attractions designed with a clear purpose: to register as many out-of-school children in the region as possible for the upcoming school year.
With engaging computer-based lessons for students, presentations about education by famed musicians Obour and Mama Rams as well as local leaders and officials, the soccer match, and registration tables where parents could sign children up for school, the daylong event attracted more than 5,000 people.
Some community members traveled more than 60 miles to reach the Roadshow. “I left my farm to attend this event,” says Imoro Issah, who brought his two daughters. “The program brought joy to everyone, particularly the children. It showed that school can bring so much excitement.”
At the event attended by approximately 2,000 in-school children, 1,384 out-of-school children – 52% of whom are girls – registered for the upcoming school year. Many among the group have never attended school before or had dropped out.
“The program was a huge success,” says B.S. Tampouri, the coordinating director of the Nanumba South District Assembly. “Apart from enrolling so many children in school, it also painted a clear picture to us of the magnitude of out-of-school children in the district,” he says. “The District Assembly plans to put strategies in place to find the rest of the out-of-school children who did not get to register at this event.”
Planned jointly by Camfed and its volunteers, the Nanumba South District Committee and District Assembly and the Ghana Education Service, the Roadshow included a donation presentation of 2,600 books for local schools from Credit Suisse, who are supporting educational access and quality in Camfed partner schools, and 40 bicycles from Camfed to girls who travel long distances on foot to reach school. The books will go a long way to improving the educational environment in rural schools that are short of learning materials, giving young people a much better chance to succeed, and the bicycles will make getting to school possible for many children who live too far to walk everyday.
“People came to this event from villages I’d never even heard of, and they wanted to send their children to school,” says Rahinatur Dawuni, a Camfed volunteer and community member. “Did you see how people were dancing? This event has brought us so much happiness.”
The 1GOAL: Education for All campaign is an international initiative designed to encourage world leaders to commit to providing education for all children by 2015. Organized by the Global Campaign for Education, 1Goal is composed of a large network of 100 international charities and nonprofit organizations, including Camfed and Comic Relief, footballers, celebrities, multinational corporations and government agencies, such as the UK Department for International Development (DFID).
On October 6, 2009, Ghana President John Atta Mills joined world leaders including South Africa President Jacob Zuma, Her Majesty Rania Al-Abdullah, Queen of Jordan, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and FIFA president Seth Blatter in launching the 1GOAL campaign.
Presently, 75 million children are out of school in Africa and other developing countries. About 800,000 are in Ghana, with large concentration in the northern region, where the Interactive Roadshow took place.
To support the 1Goal campaign, visit join1goal.org.
This is amazing! Thank you CAMFED. There is hope for the girl child and the future of Ghana!
I believe we also need to pay attention for the many ‘out-of School’ adults in Ghana as a way of combatting poverty. For me, functional adult literacy holds the key to sustainability in development efforts. Unfortunately, we are not giving this the needed attention!
Theophilus Nkansah.