Tema Manhean embarks on $500,000 expansion project
The Paramount Chief of Tema, Osongaa Nii Adjei Kraku II, has cut the sod for the commencement of work on a $500,000 two-storey house made up of nine classrooms for the St Nicholas Preparatory School in Tema.
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The project involves the construction of classrooms for primary, junior and senior high school pupils and students. The school takes care of underprivileged children in the sprawling Tema Manhean fishing community.
The sod-cutting ceremony marked St Nicholas’ Day, which is observed globally on December 6 each year. St Nicholas was a bishop in the 4th century in Greece who developed a reputation for giving out gifts.
The project was initiated in February 2012, through the Maria Tsakos Foundation in Ghana with the motto: “Every child has a right to education.”
Nii Kraku, who offered land for the project, commended the Tsakos Group for starting the development of the community by first planting a church.
There are also long-term plans for a vocational college to be constructed to teach information technology, and tourism.
The school also hosts the Holy Transfiguration Cathedral of Accra.
Nii Kraku lauded the decision by the group to attach a field and a basketball pitch to the project.
Tsakos Group presented GH¢2,000 to Nii Kraku to support his education foundation.
President of the Ghana Olympic Committee and the Ghana Athletics Association, Professor Francis Dodoo, commended the Tsakos Group for supporting Ghana to host major competitions for junior athletics for the past seven years.
The school has Mrs Susan Lyddon and Mrs Vivienne King, a founding sponsor who has come from the UK to stay for one month, volunteering their services.
Madam Deborah Eleazar of the Tsakos Group expressed the hope that the community would make the project sustainable.
The school is being supported by the Education and Book Appeal Ghana (Teabag), donations from the crew of Mount “Nippon Princess”, currently at anchor off Tema and the MT “Salamina”, two vessels belonging to the Tsakos Group, and friends from the UK, fund raising initiatives including sponsored dinners and shooting parties.
Captain Alkiviades Kappas, one of the founders of the school who donated a bus to the school, also takes care of the running costs.
Mr Andreas Bisbas, a UK-based sponsor, also donated a generator, while Atlas Copco provided food items covering a period of six-months to the school.