16. January 2025 – Visit to our partner school in Ho, the Mawkuko Girls Senior High School
What a joy! No sooner had we arrived, early in the morning at 8:00 a.m., than the first group photo was taken in front of the main entrance to the school, where “our” posters, the “HITA partner school”, are also displayed. We hadn’t even noticed this, but we were very happy about it. There was a change of management at Mawuko. Mrs. Rose C. Nyawuto has taken over from the former principal Ernestina Peniana. Such a change is not always easy and, as we have learned in recent months, especially not when it involves a partnership between several partners in two countries. It was therefore all the more important that we were now able to meet the new school management to discuss outstanding issues. We will clarify these at this meeting and set them down in writing in a contractual amendment to the existing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Another main part of our visit was a tour of the existing HITA PC Lab and the premises for a second PC Lab, which we donated to the school on the occasion of its 40th anniversary last year. A basic prerequisite for our partnership is that each side takes responsibility. In our case, we take care of the financial resources, donations, transportation, etc. and Mawuko takes care of preparing the building. As you can easily see from the pictures, great efforts are necessary so that we can actually build the second computer lab at Mawuko this fall. To this end, we have jointly drawn up a work plan with milestones, which we have attached as the basis for our further collaboration. Various trades have to be involved until the rooms are ready to accommodate up to 40 PCs. In addition to the cabling and network aspects shown above, the ceilings and some of the walls need to be redone. Cooling is a major problem because 3 out of 4 air conditioning units no longer work. Another aspect is that we need two additional rooms, one for preparing the computers, i.e. a kind of workshop, and a storage room for spare parts and additional equipment.
In the afternoon, we had an appointment with our partners from the Grow Your Dream Foundation, with whom we are working on various projects in the very rural area of Adaku. Getting there is a “challenge”, as they say here. Most cabs refuse. And the ones that are willing to drive there are in an adventurous state. My seat, for example, was on a stone and was secured with a simple rope. Under the motto “a bad trip is always better than a good trip”, we set off. On site, our friends Jacob, Linus and Wonder gave us an insight into their work. They showed us how they tackle the issue of equal rights in the villages. Wherever we went, people were already waiting for the “teaching units”. Among other things, role plays are used to show how many different tasks women have to do in the household at the same time. We found the subsequent discussion interesting, with one man complaining that only women’s concerns were being addressed. A second project is “ICT Girls”, for which we have donated PCs and laptops. These are used to teach ICT skills to girls in particular. We were very touched to hear from some of them how much the work with the laptops motivates them to learn more so that they can have a better life in the future. We want to provide more support for this project in the future, for example to teach health skills.
Speaking of the household: the next picture shows a typical country kitchen. It is located a little away from the actual living hut because of the risk of fire. In such kitchens, the most delicious dishes are cooked on a so-called tripod, which you can see at the back right. The kitchen also serves as a storage room for all kinds of equipment and as a pantry. The kitchen itself consists of bamboo elements, some of which are filled with stones or dung. Sometimes the roof of the kitchen is also a drying area for maize or other food. The exhaust air, i.e. the smoke or heat from the coal fire, is used to dry things. It is hard for us to imagine living, housekeeping and/or cooking under these conditions. However, the result is incredibly tasty. Whether it’s fufu, banku, pantene or garie, we now love Ghanaian cuisine and look forward to trying something new every time. We will report on this in a separate article.