Maybe you’ve heard of us, maybe you haven’t; regardless, we want to be the organization you can’t stop talking about. We may be a small team working with a tight budget, but we’re proud of the education that has become accessible to our students in the Asiafo Amanfro Community in Ghana, Africa.
THE FACTS:
The Akaa Project was founded in 2009 with the establishment of the Asiafo Amanfro Community School.
We are located in the Eastern Region of Ghana, known for its mountainous, rural, farming villages.
Our school’s attendance has grown every year, enrolling over 100 students in the beginning of this 5th school year.
Our school has inspired neighboring communities of Hasi, Bosotwi, and Suta (the closest of which is a half mile away) to send their children to our school where they can rely on the teachers, facilities, and quality of education.
THE ISSUE:
In the past we have made several attempts to hire local tro-tros (buses) and drivers to act as our school bus to increase attendance from the neighboring communities.
Each student was paying the equivalent of $.30 a week to be picked up by a driver who may or may not show up and is most often causing the students to arrive late to class.
The cost of hiring the tro-tro has more than doubled due to drastic increases in the price of petrol in Ghana.
For the last three weeks of the 2013-2014 academic year, our students were forced to either walk to school, with many older students carrying their younger siblings, or not attend at all.
The walk to school has completely altered the effectiveness of the school day by interfering with scheduling, student engagement, and overall class attendance.
THE SOLUTION:
It’s time the Akaa Project invested in its very own school transportation!
What do we need? $15,000 for the overall costs of buying, insuring, and operating a 15-20 person tro-tro (essentially a large van).
What can we do with it? The most basic and valuable uses will be purely to increase consistent school attendance, but it will also hugely expand the range of our life-skill development activities through regular field trips and excursions to give our students a better understanding of the opportunities available to them in Ghana. Furthermore, it will allow us to collaborate with and engage volunteers in our mission.
Reliable transportation also has the ability to increase the speed and effectiveness of many Akaa Project initiatives that frequently rely on the shipping and delivery of resources and materials.