Anglican Church raises funds to rehabiliate school
On May 3, 2012 the St. James Anglican Basic School at Agona Swedru in the Central Region was hit by a severe rainstorm that ripped off the entire roofs of two classrooms.
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The rainstorm caused severe damage to the B.S 4A and J.H.S 1B classrooms. Textbooks, exercise books and other teaching and learning materials were also destroyed.
Appeals by the school authorities to the Agona West Municipal Assembly to come to the aid of the school did not receive any response and they were forced to combine some of the classes. The school’s ICT centre was also converted into a classroom.
To help renovate the building, the Anglican Diocese of Cape Coast, in collaboration with the school’s authorities, has held a special fund-raising durbar to raise a total of GHc15,018.40p, out of an estimated GHc25,000. Some philanthropists also donated 110 bags of cement and 10 packets of roofing sheets towards the project.
An old boy of the school, Nana Ogyabea Bedu Ehuren, Sanahene of Agona Swedru, authored the school’s history, which was auctioned during the ceremony raising about GHc1,500 to support the project.
In an address, Mrs Queenster Maame Pokua Sawyerr, the Deputy Central Regional Minister, said the government was committed to the provision of quality education and, therefore, welcomed interventions by churches and other institutions towards the educational sector.
According to her, though the region boasts some of the best educational institutions in the country, poverty is really endemic in the area and pointed out that the government would increase access to education as a means of reducing poverty in the region.
Mrs Sawyerr, who is also the Member of Parliament for Agona East , noted that one of her priorities was education and would ensure that facilities needed to help improve educational standards in the region were provided.
The Agona West Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Samuel Oppong, acknowledged that although the assembly had plans to rehabilitate the affected classrooms when it was destroyed by rainstorm a year ago, his outfit was overstretched with numerous requests from schools with similar problems in the municipality and lauded the church’s resolve to organise the fund-raising event.
Mr Oppong together with Mrs Sawyerr and the MP for the Agona West, Lawyer Charles Obeng-Inkoom, donated GHc5,000, 50 bags of cement and 10 packets of roofing sheets to support the renovation.
Mr Francis Obeng Ampadu, the Agona West Municipal Director of Education, urged other churches to take a cue from what the Anglican Church had done and complement the effort of the government in the provision of education to Ghanaians.
Story: Gilbert Mawuli Agbey / Daily Graphic / Ghana