SABRE NEWS Akwaaba
Sabre Charitable Trust Registered Charity No. 1105489
September 2010 Issue 4
KG Scholarship Focus This month Sabre is launching its exciting new student sponsorship scheme, in collaboration with the KEEA Municipal Education Office and partner charity Tomorrow’s Stars. The scheme, which draws on the combined experience of both charities in facilitating student sponsorship programmes, will initially offer five full boarding Senior High School scholarships to “brilliant but needy” students from the KEEA Municipality.
September brings with it the end of a long and exciting summer here in Ghana, with the successful running of nine school expeditions, a plethora of completed building projects and refurbishments, new volunteering opportunities and increased awareness countrywide of what we’re up to. With the sun now shining after the rainy season, we’re looking forward to beginning works on our next kindergarten, developing our training centre, welcoming the next batch of volunteers and developing new partnerships. Yenk-o!
The scheme will be promoted via a radio campaign in early September, to coincide with the release of BECE (Basic Education Completion Certificate) results and the confirmation of places at Senior High School. The criteria that we have set for the scheme is designed to ensure that only the neediest residents of KEEA, who are committed to continuing their education in the municipality, can apply. To qualify, students will need to have completed Junior High School at a KEEA government school, have been offered a place at one of the three KEEA Senior High Schools and achieved a score of 12 or better in their BECE (this is marked on a scale of 5-50, with 5 being the best). By working in collaboration with the local education office and head teachers, we can closely monitor the performance of the scholarship students, and ensure that selection is based on need and academic ability. This fund based system also represents an important move away from schemes which are based on a pre-existing relationship between the scholar and their sponsor, something which has been problematic for Sabre in the past. A year’s sponsorship costs approximately GHC 600 (roughly £300), and includes all academic and boarding fees plus an allowance for books and uniform. Senior High School is a three year programme. If you would like to make a contribution to the scholarship trust fund, please contact trust@sabretrust.org. Sponsors will receive termly updates on student progress and teacher feedback.
Bantuma
Donations
This summer, Bantuma has seen itself transformed from a school with one of the worst track records for BECE results in the KEEA municipality, into a centre that actively promotes education through our Literacy Programme.
The last quarter has seen Sabre receive a whole host of goodies from various teams, individuals and organisations, all of which get sorted through and matched to project needs and community requests.
Kathy Weir from Tomorrow’s Stars, our partner charity in enabling this programme, spent six weeks over the summer overseeing its setup and coordination and describes its success as follows:
With donated items including excercise books, medical equipment, clothing, sports kit and anything inbetween we have been ensuring all the donations end up helping a good cause and benefiting those who need them most.
“The library at Bantuma has quickly become a safe place for children to gather, read, use puzzles, forget about the lives they live, and begin to further their learning with plenty of volunteers around to help and resources that can be used”.
In addition to these air freighted donations, Sabre is organising a container of kindergarten equipment and sports kit to be shipped to Ghana in the Autumn. More details to follow in the next newsletter.
Solomon (pictured) is one of the students who has benefited from previous sponsorship schemes. After completing his Senior High School course at Edinaman, he has spent a year volunteering on a literacy project in a local school, before now going on to teacher training college. He will make a fantastic and dedicated teacher, supporting generations of future scholars.
Volunteering Projects Initial feedback on our new Literacy Programme has been great, allowing local children the chance to enhance their learning capabilities even when school is on break for the summer. Over 20 volunteers have been involved so far and we hope to make this a regular school holiday and after school programme. On the construction side of things, building of our new training centre has begun, work on the next KG starts imminently and there are various refurbishment activities taking place over a number of schools. We’ve also been working with various sports teams to help them by providing coaches and kit, and have more coaches coming to Ghana in September.