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.
School Expeditions Summer 2010
This summer has seen a record number of school teams visit KEEA, with Sabre hosting a total of 212 students split between nine different school groups. All are based within local communities that Sabre actively works with, and the expedition groups were given a traditional Ghanaian welcome during their stays in the respective communities. The projects undertaken by each group varied depending on the different needs of each community, however, together they built four kindergarten playgrounds (Bronyibima, Dwabor, Ayensudo Islamic & Ayensudo Community), staged various malaria awareness programmes, got involved with aspects of classroom and school refurbishment, put
Reach Cambridge Following on from last year’s fabulous “GhanaFest” event, Sabre again teamed up with summer school Reach Cambridge, this time for a Summer of Fun(draising)! 120 students from all around the globe were involved in a series of charity challenges, auctions of promises, drumming circles and street collections to raise a phenomenal £3,033 for Sabre’s next kindergarten project at Ayensudo. A big thank you to the students and the people of Cambridge for their overwhelming generosity!
Volunteer in Ayensudo
September brings with it the beginning of the new kindergarten building project at Ayensudo. Both the school design and our volunteer programme have been enhanced by our experience in Dwabor and the volunteer construction programme will run from early October 2010 until the end of May 2011. For further details please contact our volunteering team. Corporate partners
on eight kindergarten sports days and painted classroom murals. On top of this they still found time for a bit of well-deserved rest and relaxation, seeing local cultural highlights including Elmina Castle and Kakum National Park, as well as enjoying some beach time at various points during their stay. What these groups have achieved between them is incredible and it has been fantastic to see what new ideas each one has brought to their own projects. Feedback from the schools has been overwhelmingly positive and we look forward to building upon this aspect of our work in the future. Bring on next summer!
Charity Concert Chamber choir Aliquando will be giving a performance of Karl Jenkins’ Stabat Mater on 6th November at St. Mary’s Church, Henley-on-Thames. Aliquando Director, Anne Evans says: “ I first heard the work under the baton of Karl Jenkins himself, and was utterly captivated - we are extremely fortunate that Belinda Sykes, the soloist on that occasion, will sing and play the “ethnic”
element in our performance alongside One-Drum, and together with Chaconne Brass, organist Philip Aspden, and a string ensemble”. All proceeds from this exciting and memorable concert will go to the Sabre Trust. Tickets are £12 and can be reserved either by email (aliquando@sky.com) or telephone (+44 (0) 1491 578 238). See www.aliquando.co.uk for further details.
SOAS Sports Tour
Promotional Material
In mid-September Sabre will welcome a touring football squad from London University’s School of Oriental & African Studies. The students will play fixtures against Sabre, the University of Cape Coast and Elmina Sharks as well as running coaching sessions for local soccer academies and completing the construction of a toilet block at Bronyibima Kindergarten School.
We are delighted to launch our new corporate sponsorship pack which includes a redesigned “About Us” flyer. This can be downloaded from our website. If you work for a company that may be interested in partnering with the Sabre Trust and would like a copy of this new pack then please do get in touch - it includes full information on our corporate volunteering scheme.
Ghanaian Picture & Proverb
“If you don’t know your way in the light, don’t try and find your way in the dark!” Contact Us: T: 0203 239 9471 E: tom@sabretrust.org E: volunteer@sabretrust.org W: www.sabretrust.org