Every little helps — helping children of Ghana
Dear Friends,I hope you are all well and happy. I wanted to let you all know about a project in Ghana that Lisa and I are leading for an organization called Orphans’ Heroes.
We are planning to build an environmentally friendly, low-energy, cost-efficient school for a village with 800 residents, 216 of which are children. The nearest school is an hour away and currently less than 20 of the older children attend school.
Andokope is in the Upper Volta region of Ghana, in an area where child slavery is a big problem. The people are incredibly poor and often have to make terrible choices — like whether to sell one child into slavery to feed three others or to watch them all starve to death.
The children who are sold are often sent to fish on Lake Volta and work long hours, often without being fed for days at a time. Having to climb out of a boat and into the crocodile-infested lake to untangle a fishing net is a terrifying thought for anyone. Consider most of the children cannot swim and you can only imagine their fear.
The plan is to make an environmentally friendly school using local materials. It will be low-cost, low maintenance and the goal is to make the school independent and self-sufficient within 5 years. We will use Compressed Earth Blocks (CEB) to construct the building and will use solar panels to bring light to the village, where there is currently no electricity. We will provide students with two meals a day and the chance to have an education. If the children eat two meals a day at the school, the burden of feeding them will be lifted from their parents and more families will remain intact.
You can get more information on the Orphans’ Heroes website: http://www.orphansheroes.org/Orphans_Heroes/Donate__Andokope_School.html
In Ghana, $5 provides health care for a child for one year, $12 can buy a bag of cement and $50 can buy a window and screens for a classroom, $1600 will pay for a compressed earth block machine (similar to this one).
We know that times are hard. Please consider donating whatever you feel you can to the school, a little goes a long way and we appreciate any help you can give.
 |
| Donated land for the school |
If you would like more information about our plans, the technology we will use, how we hope to make it self-sustaining, etc. please feel contact me or Lisa. All donations are tax deductible for people who live in the US.
Please forward this e-mail to anyone you think might be interested and willing to help these children from poverty and slavery.
Wishing you all a healthy, happy and prosperous new year.
Love,
Lisa, Farhad & Mawunya
More to read:
