Asisiriwa Schools’ Open Day

On November 18^th, the two schools in the village of Asisiriwa—Asisiriwa Methodist Primary and Asisiriwa D/A Junior High School—jointly held a fundraising event called an Open Day. The purpose was to raise money to fix a JHS classroom’s roof after a tree had fallen on it, and also to complete the computer lab that has been under construction since before we even arrived in the village. Their fundraising goal was 15,000 Ghana cedis (1,050 US dollars).

Our organization was invited to the Open Day by our longtime friend, Noah Owusu Boateng, the headmaster of the JHS. Although I sadly wasn’t able to attend, our director of operations for Untold Ghana, Clement Quist-Nsabaah did, taking our donation and all our greetings with him. Our two staff members in Asisiriwa were actually very much involved in the program, as our librarian, Kumi, was asked to be the MC for the event (along with his best friend, Sparrow) and Mary, our teacher, helped with the costumes for the performers.

500 guests gathered in the main square of the village, called the Community Center, for the Open Day. The district director of education wasn’t able to make it, but he sent a representative on his behalf. A representative from the current political party in power (New Patriotic Party, or NPP) was also there, as were representatives from various churches in the community. The chief of Asisiriwa, Nana Katanka Safo, and his elders were also in attendance.

After a speech by the chair of the event, the activities got under way. The students of the two schools had been rehearsing their performances for weeks, and it was their time to shine. They performed poetry, a drama titled “Bɔ Bra Pa” (“Live a Good Life”), dances (the traditional adowa and kete dances, along with contemporary dance), the talking drum, news delivery, and more. Proud parents rushed the stage to rain one-cedi notes on the heads of their children while they performed, despite admonishments from the MCs to let the students do their thing without distractions.

In his report to the board of Untold International, Quist—who used to be a teacher in Asisiriwa before our language arts center, Kasadwini Atenaeɛ, was built there—said that the students of the village would never have been able to get up in front of a huge crowd like that back in his day. He credited Kasadwini Atenaeɛ, where Mary has specifically been teaching public speaking classes in both English and Twi, with this new development. It’s super exciting to hear that our efforts have led to kids, even young ones, getting up in front of their whole village and performing poetry, dance, and drama. Not only are their traditional literary styles being preserved, but they are growing in confidence!

After speeches by the representative for the director of education, Quist delivered our donation to the headmasters of the two schools. In the end, the schools did not hit their fundraising goal. Deducting their expenses for the event, they raised 5,809 cedis ($406), the bulk of which came from Untold Ghana—apparently it was mostly us and the parents who contributed. This is a bit of a sad conclusion to such a beautiful event where the students worked so hard to raise money for their school. If you would like to make a donation to help the schools in Asisiriwa get closer to their goal, you can click here and just include a note saying, “For the schools”. You can also click here to become an Untold Dollar donor and give $1 a month, which we use to provide the extra classes at Kasadwini Atenaeɛ to empower these students to stand up in front of crowds and speak.

Meda wo ase sɛ w’akenkan yɛn twerɛtwerɛ no. Thanks for reading our blog.