Deprived Nanapa community receives furniture for only basic school
Nanapa, a small farming community with a population of 600 inhabitants who are mostly farmers, lies in the forest belt in the Atiwa East District of the Eastern Region.
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Due to its location in the hinterland, it is beset with many challenges such as insufficient number of dual desks for the pupils and students of its only basic school, the Nanapa D/A Basic School, which currently has 222 learners.
Apart from that, the road linking the community with other towns and hamlets is in a deplorable state, making it difficult for the farmers and market women to transport farm produce such as maize, plantain, cassava, cocoyam and vegetables to the market centres, especially Enyeresi, which can be found along the Bunso Nkawkaw stretch of the Accra-Kumasi highway.
The community also does not have a clinic, health centre or CHPS compound, forcing the sick and pregnant women in labour to travel all the way to the Enyeresi Government Hospital some kilometres away for delivery and treatment.
Due to the current situation in the area, especially concerning education, effective teaching and learning are hampered at Nanapa D/A Basic School because school- children cannot sit down comfortably to learn.
Furniture for schoolchildren
Another aspect of education in the area is that schoolchildren at the town's kindergarten, as well as those in primary one, do not have furniture. As such, parents have to accompany them to the school with their furniture to and from school daily, a situation that makes it almost impossible for many parents to send their kids to school, consequently affecting teaching and learning in the school negatively.
It is against this background that the Nana Adjei Kyerema Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the welfare of children and vulnerable in society, has, for a start, donated 70 dual desks to the basic school to help address their challenges.
The donation was a response to an appeal made by the Odikro of the community, Baffour Rockson Akwei I, as well as the school authorities, about the lack of furniture in the school.
CSR for community
At a ceremony to present the furniture to the school last week Wednesday, the Founder, Adjei Kyerema, said the donation was part of the foundation's corporate social responsibility towards the community, especially the school.
The foundation, he stated, was also committed to contributing towards a brighter future for the children and the vulnerable in the community he hailed from.
Mr Kyerema, who is also a businessman and an entrepreneur, said investing in children’s education by providing them with desks to sit on would enhance effective teaching and learning among schoolchildren and teachers.
That, he indicated, would help improve the human resource base of the community and the country as a whole.
Mr Kyerema expressed the hope that the provision of the items would go a long way to improve the academic work of pupils and students, who would in turn train the next batch of future leaders in the district.
He urged the management of the school to ensure that the furniture donated would be well maintained and put to good use.
That, Mr Kyerema noted, would encourage others in the community to emulate such a gesture.
Other basic schools
When asked about the future plans of the foundation, he said other basic schools in nearby communities in the district would also be catered for, depending on their needs.
The headteacher of the school, Osei Abrokwa, was full of praise for the foundation for responding to their call for assistance.
He was hopeful that the provision of the furniture would help address the challenge of inadequate desks in the school.
Mr Abrokwa expressed gratitude to the management and representatives of the foundation for the gesture.
He, however, listed several challenges facing the school, such as the lack of an ICT laboratory, laptops, furniture and illegal mining, which some pupils sneak to engage in at times.
Good performance
Regarding the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), Mr Abrokwa said despite such challenges, the performance of the pupils at the JHS level had been good and that last year a pupil obtained an aggregate of 16 at the BECE.
He was hopeful that the performance of the pupils this year would result in a single-digit aggregate.
The School Improvement Support Officer of the Ghana Education Service for Enyeresi, Millicent Penni, for her part, pointed out that the lack of furniture for schools in the district had become a worrying phenomenon which needed to be addressed.
She said most chiefs in the areas were also trying their best to provide such desks to enable schoolchildren to have an enabling environment to learn.
Ms Penni said the Atiwa East District Assembly was also doing its best to provide desks to ensure that all schools within the catchment area were provided furniture to improve academic work in the schools.
Teachers, he also stated, needed chairs and tables to do their work in the classrooms.
Residents
Doris Korkor, a resident of Nanapa, who said she was happy about the supply of furniture to the school, was grateful to the foundation.
She said the availability of the furniture had saved them from carrying the items from home to school and back daily.
That, Ms Korkor emphasised, had averted the situation where the schoolchildren had to sit and write on the bare floor.
She said since the accessible road to the town was also in a poor state, it needed to be rehabilitated to make it easier for both farmers and traders to send their wares to the marketing centres.
That, she also indicated, would make it more convenient for the sick, especially pregnant women, to be conveyed to the Enyeresi Government Hospital for delivery and treatment.
The Odikro of Nanapa, Baffour Rockson Akwei I, received the furniture and handed it over to the headteacher, Mr Abrokwa, and his staff.
He called for more support for the school, which he stated needed help and appealed to other well-to-do Ghanaians and organisations to support in that regard.
Baffour Akwei advised the management of the school to take good care of the furniture for it to last longer and urged the community members to not take the furniture to their homes.
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