Our schools
The great development of our association makes it possible for us to already support four schools. Among them are two primary schools, the St. Jeromes Primary School in Abofour and the Abofour Roman Catholic Primary School. The schoolchildren attend primary schools for six years. We also award scholarships to St. Jeromes Junior High School, which students attend for another three years after primary school, and to St. Jeromes Senior High School, which students attend for three years too enabling them to begin their studies after graduation.
St. Jeromes Primary School
The St. Jerome Primary School is affiliated with a kindergarten. The kindergarten, consisting of two years is visited by 230 children daily; St. Jerome Primary School, which consists of six years has a total of 440 pupils. The classrooms look a bit different than how we know it from Germany. The warm climate allow to renounce windows and doors. Moreover, a classroom of comparable size to ours in Europe accommodates around twice as many students here. The equipment is limited to a blackboard on the wall. The school building in general is in need of renovation, but still fulfils its purpose. Both, the kindergarten and the primary school, are day facilities. However, the children do not receive food from the school, but buy it themselves from local traders near the school, as long as they can pay it. Unfortunately this does not apply to all pupils. For our scholarship holders, the costs for food are therefore covered. Thanks to a generous donation from the company “Saurer”, we were also able to pass on a number of laptops, which are now used in the primary school administration.
Abofour Roman Catholic Primary School
This primary school also houses a kindergarten. A total of 315 children attend the kindergarten daily whereas 577 children attend the primary school. This school is also a day facilities where the children stay for their lunch break.
St. Jeromes Junior High School
The school is attended by 220 students while the teaching staff consists of 13 people. The school building is in a very poor condition and in urgent need of renovation. In the rainy season some classrooms are regularly flooded. Since the Ghanaian state does not have sufficient financial means, a renovation is unfortunately not to be expected in the next years.
St. Jeromes Senior High School
This school consists of three buildings, 80 percent of which have been completed. Unfortunately, however, the remaining construction was already stopped 5 years ago because the state did not pay the construction company. Although these buildings are not finished, they are, at least partly, used as classrooms. Due to the sharp increase in the number of pupils, around 90 pupils are taught in one class; if the unfinished classrooms were not used, the class size would even rise up to over 100 pupils. One building lacks a proper floor, windows and doors. In the second building there is no railing on the second floor, which makes this floor unusable. Since the first floor has a total of 8 bedrooms, the use of the second floor would be highly desirable. The kids are currently using former classrooms and the library as bedrooms. The third building will be used for toilets and showers, but the sanitary facilities have not yet been installed. As the school's sanitary facilities are very poor, the completion of this building would significantly improve the situation. We hope to be able to cover the costs of completing the buildings soon and are in the process of negotiating contracts with the construction company.
St. Patrick´s Nursing and Midwifery School in Offinso
At present about 1.000 nurses and midwives are being trained. The two professions are not only urgently needed in Ghana, but are also very popular. Three scholarship holders have already completed their training and are now working as midwives.
Offinso College of Education
Here students are trained to become teachers. The training lasts a total of three years. The College is one of the best in Ghana and the number of students has been increasing steadily over the last few years.
Planned:
Overall, we also aim to include more schools in our program, especially schools in the villages of Kwapanin and Asuboi, which are a few kilometers away from Abofour and can only be reached via an unpaved road. During the rainy season, access to the villages is therefore more difficult.
Furthermore, the "Immaculate Heart of Mary School" in Namong/ Offinso has gained our attention. The very special thing about this school is that it teaches pupils with and without disabilities and, in addition to purely academic achievements, also promotes musical, sporting or manual talent.
