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Maggie
17 October 2008
GENERAL
DEVELOPMENTS
·
Water
- The forthcoming general election in December has ‘encouraged’
the government to finally introduce policies designed to improve
the lives of its citizens. This includes access to a mains water
supply for the villages, which will obviously improve the lives
of our students.
Education
- A second initiative is to provide free education for all,
which means that there should no longer be an admission fee for
school entry & some text/exercise books are supplied free. This
is working to a limited degree – we have still been charged an
admission fee (under another name) for our students going to
church schools & have had to buy uniforms, books, pens pencils
etc for all, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. I
hear that one political party has compulsory education as part
of its manifesto but I’ll believe that when I see it!
MALTITI DEVELOPMENTS
·
Committee
- We now have an active committee comprising parents/youth
chiefs from the 4 villages who send us students (Kalariga,
Vittin, Dabukpaa, Toutihgli) & the teachers. This has made a big
difference to Fred & I as we now feel we are being supported
more & can share the responsibility of the project with those
who it directly concerns – the parents. It also means that the
Chiefs can act as a ‘buffer’ so that students/parents go
straight to them with any problems rather than us – this should
cut down on the number of early morning visits Fred gets from
the students/parents demanding his financial support for
something or another (usually a pencil) but then again, old
habits die hard!
·
School entry
- We have been successful in sending 18 of our students to
primary school this September & many many thanks to Ceri/Cat for
their hard work on sponsorship here (see below) To mark this
milestone in Maltiti history we held a presentation event to
hand over the school items to the girls (including their beloved
bicycles) along with a leaving certificate. (image attached) We
had coverage on 4 local radio stations & most of the parents,
chiefs, & a representative from 2 of the schools the girls are
attending turned up.
Once the sponsored girls had been selected we held a number of
meetings with the parents, explaining the nature of the
sponsorship they’d be receiving & the importance of their
commitment to supporting their daughter. There’s no doubt that
including the parents like this has made a big difference in
their attitude towards the project, not only within that group
itself but also among the villagers in general as they all now
perceive Maltiti in a new (successful) light & are anxious for
their daughters to attend (if only because they think they’ll
get a bicycle!) But whatever, we feel we’re finally engaging the
parents in the whole educational process & this is the kind of
positive breakthrough that will benefit the project enormously –
it does after all belong to them, not Fred or I!!!
Our students are attending 3 local primary schools & the glow of
pride we feel when we see them dressed in their new uniforms
(some very oversized) with their new backpacks makes up for all
the hard work. Have attached an image of the students at Dakpema
Primary on their second day!
Enrolments this year
– to date we have 22 new students this year,
mainly from Vittin village this time, along with 26
re-enrollers. We agreed with the committee that each student
would pay a small fee of 5 Gh cedis a term to help support the
project & all have done this without complaint. We think this
helps to commit parents to the project & obviously, helps us
with our costs. We still have our 3 classes and the same
teachers, Afishata who takes the newcomers & less able students,
Mohammed who takes the ‘middle’ ability students and Ibrahim who
teaches our pre-school group. Their commitment to the project &
the students has always been amazing but I think that sending
these latest girls to school has injected a real sense of
progress and purpose into us all & I sense we’re (finally)
becoming a real team.
Vocational class
– We are delighted to say that we have at last opened (or should
I say re-opened) the sewing class & have 7 girls enrolled, plus
a brand new (female) teacher (see image) One reason we’re so
pleased is because we have always wanted to preserve rather than
abandon the original purpose of Maltiti, as created by Mary &
now we feel we have. And we’re keen to move this forward as well
(Mary, you won’t be surprised to hear that there are still far
too many young women lounging around the villages doing nothing)
& so we hope to extend the number of classes we have if we can
get funding. We have applied to the local cultural centre to see
if we can open a unit there for our students to take real orders
& earn an income for themselves & Maltiti! You may recall that
Fred managed to place several of the ‘original’ girls into
sewing shops (Kande, Fati, Maria) a year ago & they should all
be qualified by the end of this year & we’re hoping they will
join us.
·
FUNDRAISING
Sponsorship scheme
– As I said we’ve managed to send 18 students to school this
year as a result of the sponsorship scheme & we’re hoping to
repeat this next year. The best part of the scheme is that it
looks like the sponsors will ‘stay the course’ with their
student & see them through to graduation, which is marvellous.
I’ve already mentioned how indebted we are to Ceri & Cat for
securing these sponsors so I shan’t keep going on about it but
feel I must acknowledge their amazing contribution wherever I
can.
Fred & I are currently writing to the larger NGOs asking for
their support. The good news for us is that alongside the
general education developments outlined above, there is a
particular ‘push’ on girls education (finally someone has
realized that if you educate the mothers etc etc) & so we feel
the time could be right for accessing some of their next year’s
budget for ourselves. We shall also write again to local
companies to try to get support.
Unfortunately we’ve had no volunteers of our own for a long time
now & to some extent we’ve managed to progress without this
support/income stream but there’s no doubt we need to get more
proactive again. Our hopes to partner i-to-i, the UK volunteer
company were deferred by them as a result of a safety warning on
the UK home office website - not relevant to Tamale but they
weren’t taking any chances! Our updated website should help if
only we can get more visitors – thanks to John for keeping that
one in order.
·
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
New build
– the most exciting development that is taking place is the new
building for Maltiti! Fred’s father has, not surprisingly,
finally got fed up with us using his house for free & unless we
can pay a considerable rent (which we can’t) then we have to
move on. Once over the shock we decided this could be the best
thing for Maltiti as it means we can have our own purpose built
centre in one of the villages! After various discussions with
the chief’s & elders we have been gifted some land at Kalariga,
been provided with the labour by village builders & craftsmen
for the cost of some food rather than hourly rates & a large
amount of enthusiasm from the villagers themselves. We need to
fundraise for the cost of materials, land registration
requirements & architects drawing etc. but won’t know what these
are until we have the plan of the new building. Then we can
break down the costs into sizeable chunks for fundraising
purposes & I’ll send you all a copy in the hopes……
Once the deal was struck & our champion fundraiser sent us some
money & we set about claiming the land as our own & attached are
images of the first building blocks that were moulded last
weekend. We’re currently working on a sign to tell everyone
we’re on our way!
Other developments
– Ceri (despite just embarking on her medical training) sent us
a very detailed development plan & we’re hoping to take forward
at least a couple of her main ideas:
-
Resourced study rooms in each of the 4 villages for use by
the girls at any time, plus offering basic education for the
mothers if they would like it. This will happen now at
Kalariga with the new build but we’re looking at how we can
develop this at the other villages….we can see such a
facility being used for other purposes – sewing shops,
meetings, maybe even a base for income generating women’s
cooperatives.
-
Providing a ‘Maltiti’ centre in other surrounding villages,
using our tried & tested model. This is certainly something
we should look to do as there’s definitely a need &
depending on who wins the next election & their policies, we
might be able to tap into some funding that way & start
setting things up.
Good for Ghana
– this is the new name for the umbrella organization (to replace
Childaid & teaching Aid) of which Maltiti is the main project.
The purpose is to attract volunteers to work either with Maltiti
or in the orphanage, as a teaching assistant or on school
building & renovation. It’s slow progress getting the website
developed, mainly thanks to my son who’s taken it on but hasn’t
really got the time, but will keep nagging him. I’ll send the
first draft for comment when it reaches any kind of advanced
stage.
·
SUMMARY
All in all I think we can be very pleased with the progress
we’ve made this last year & go very positively into the coming
year. Let’s hope that by this time next year we’ve moved into
our new centre, sent some more students to school, placed some
more into one of our ‘Maltiti sewing shops’ & have enough
funding for wider developments.
So thanks to everyone for their continued interest & support –
Am trying to get a regular (much shorter) newsletter to everyone
rather than having to produce these marathon updates which take
me forever to write & you forever to read – sorry its so long
but trust me, it actually could have been much longer!!!!
Best wishes, Maggie |
