Jamestown Noyaa School

Jamestown Noyaa School

The Noyaa School in Jamestown is located in the middle of a fisher community near the harbour in Accra. The infra structure of the area is in very bad state and the whole neighborhood is run-down. The citizens live under poor conditions and are focusing their lives mainly on fishing and preparing the catch. Even the children start working with their families.

With the school and the volunteer work school-founder Emmanuel Mark-Hansen and his colleagues want to bring education in the neighborhood and to provide the possibility of a better future for the children. But it´s not easy to run the school, motivate the kids, convince the parents, pay as well the other teachers, buy the equipment and construct the rooms with nearly no budget. In the beginning Emmanuel started with just a little house and some of his teacher colleauges who offered some volunteer help. Meanwhile they could build a school house, they have forms, teaching and learning equipment and they can provide the children regular meals. With the help of some private supporters and donations they could improve the school a lot during the last years, but it´s definitly not enough to provide the necessary materials, rooms and the staff for the increasing amount of children and their needs.

In the beginning it wasn´t easy to get the children to come to school and this is still a problem. The children just are not used to go to constant and continuous classes. As well the family fishing business takes a lot of time for helping with the work. The teachers of the school even had to convince a lot of the parents in the first time to bring their children to school or let them take part at the classes. They had to explain and convince them that the education and knowledge the children can gain at the school can be a usefull benefit for the children and their future life. The teachers are still facing a lot of problematic situations with the citizens of the neighborhood but most of them understand the need of a school and are motivating their children to go. Nevertheless the teachers are still walking around before the classes to get some of the children to take them from home to the school, otherwise they wouldn´t appear.

The school still needs a lot of support and financial help to finish the rest of the class rooms and to get some payment for more teachers. The volunteer teachers are only a few, new teachers are helping time by time, but because there is no payment volunteers are mostly rare or just help for a short time. Below you can listen to the interview with founder Emmanuel Mark-Hansen and teacher Jerry Quartey. They are talking about the work with the children and the problems the school is struggling with at the moment.

CONTACT: Noyaa School – P.O.Box 238 James Town / Founder: Emmanuel Mark-Hansen – Phone: +233279334036 – Email: emmanuelmarkhansen119@yahoo.com / Teacher: Jerry Qartey – Phone: +23320647444 – Email: solaosola111@gmail.com