Our Story
My name is Katherine Crane, I’m a freshman at Dartmouth College, and I just returned from Ghana where I was interning for Light For Children, a community development charity in Kumasi. I spent my time there working along side Rebecca Kuntz, a 19-year-old activist, social documentary filmmaker, and tenaciously dedicated young women from Chicago. During the 4 months that Rebecca spent in Ghana last year, she was constantly observing the problems of this community – poor living conditions, lack of sanitation, inadequate and expensive education, unemployment, absent fathers and plenty of barefoot children in the streets. How could a 19-year-old American address any of these issues?
The Project
The answer became clear when Yao, co-founder of Light For Children and Kumasi native, was remarking at all the kids that flooded the office each day asking to use the computers to practice their ICT skills. They learned ICT in school because the industry is booming in Ghana, but they have no access to computers to practice. The community needed a computer center for this reason, as well as to open the door to the oceans of information that can be accessed on the Internet. She also noticed that there was not a single free and open library in Kumasi. This meant that these kids, with their desperate thirst for education, had no outlet to take their education into their own hands.
This is the main premise for what came to be called The Education Center. As sustainability advisor, my job is to make the center as sustainable as possible. The blueprints for the center now include a large vegetable garden, a playground made out of recycled materials, and solar panels on the roof. These installations sprouted from community needs as well. Children have no place to play besides the streets; soon the center will be a safer and cleaner haven. Backyards are extremely rare, and gardens are even rarer, so non-farmers don’t have a strong concept of plant growth. The garden will provide a place for gardening workshops, as well as vegetables for those who commit to the garden throughout the season. The center will be a community center as well, offering vocational workshops for those looking to learn a new trade. The center is located in a cluster of four schools, and we have worked together with these principals, who are extremely excited for the new facility that the government budget wouldn’t allow them to have otherwise. Overall the center is being built by the community and for the community, and it will provide an access to knowledge and education. Through the ripple effect, this access to education will provide countless economic opportunities and will help the future generation help themselves and develop their community.
We have returned with a daunting but exciting task – to raise enough money to finish The Education Center. The foundation is already being built, but we need $20,000 to finish the building. When we go back in August, we hope to have the center built so that we can start implementing the programs and Rebecca can set up her office (she is moving there to run the center!)
SO
$20 will buy one computer desk
$150 will provide the center Internet for one month
$170 will purchase one computer
$20,000 will complete construction!
Starting on January 28th, we are running a campaign called 20for20 in which we try to raise $20,000 in 20 days for Rebecca’s 20th birthday… ambitious!
Please tell everyone you know! And visit Rebecca’s website, www.together-we-are.com
