I started thinking about our second language arts center back in February of 2020. Our first one – Kasadwini Atenaeɛ, in the village of Asisiriwa, Ghana – had just become fully operational, so I was riding that high and wondering what was next. One of our staff in Asisiriwa asked me if I had ever heard of the Bimoba people, an ethnic group living in the town called Bunkpurugu (boonk-PROO-goo) far in the north of Ghana. I hadn’t, but the words stuck in my brain.
About one week later, I was in Accra (the capital of Ghana, located in the far south) taking an intensive Akan-Twi course. I came back to my hostel after class one evening and struck up a conversation with the security guard there, whose name was James Sakoaka. He asked me what I was doing in Ghana and I told him about Untold International and what we had done in Asisiriwa; James brightened up at that and said that we would love to have such an initiative in his town in the north. I asked him where he was from and he replied, “Bunkpurugu,” opening his mouth again with a smile to clarify where that was. “Bunkpurugu?” I asked first, “Are you Bimoba?” “Yes!” he replied, shocked, “How did you know that?” There was no reason for a foreigner to know these facts, given that there are more than 70 different ethnic groups in Ghana – it was quite the coincidence.
It turned out that James had acquired a certification in Adult Education and wanted to go back to Bunkpurugu and work with an NGO there. He asked if he could take me there. Intrigued, I said yes, that I would return to Ghana a few months later, and that I would go with him to visit Bunkpurugu then.
About one week after I landed back in Germany, the COVID-19 lockdowns hit, and the resulting restrictions made it impossible for me to visit Ghana again until May 2023, three years after I had met James. Fortunately, we had stayed in contact, and he was still very interested in taking me to Bunkpurugu. Thus, I took the whole staff of Untold Ghana to see whether Bunkpurugu would be a feasible place for our second language arts center (similar to the trip Kaitlyn and I had done to Asisiriwa in April of 2015). The roads in Ghana are generally bad, but the road to Bunkpurugu is worse, eaten away by erosion and making our tro-tro slow to a crawl to navigate it. It took us two days to travel from Asisiriwa to Bunkpurugu with public transportation.
What proceeded were two full days of exploring Bunkpurugu, learning about the town, and meeting virtually every stakeholder we could. We met with the male elders of James’ family (since he was the one bringing us into the community, custom dictates that his family knew and approved of us first), the officers at the Ghana Educational Service district office, the district assembly, former literacy teachers and translators, NGO workers, current educators, the chief’s assemblyman, and then finally the chief and his elders. All of them were in support of the idea of a language arts center, some of them emotionally so. It turns out there had been a long history of literacy education in the Bimoba language (which the locals call Mɔɔr or Moar), which had taught the local people love for their language and the reading and writing of it, even though the language is not currently recognized by the government of Ghana. This Bimoba literacy education had stopped in the 2000s, and people missed it. One young teacher described himself as “a victim” of the situation, since his generation had been robbed of this education. An education officer told us, “My only regret is that you can’t start building tomorrow.”
The chief of Bunkpurugu gave us his blessing, saying that we should go search for land in Bunkpurugu that we would like to build on and that he would support our acquisition of it. Chieftancy law in the north of Ghana works differently than in the south: The chiefs don’t own the land within their territory and cannot give it away like the chief of Asisiriwa can. I returned home and wrote a 19-page report on Bunkpurugu for the board of Untold, and they voted to move forward with the search for land there where we could build our second language arts center.
Several months later, James got in contact with the chairman of a local nonprofit organization called BILFACU (Bimoba Literacy and Farmers’ Cooperative Union). BILFACU had been a huge part of the Bimoba literacy education in Bunkpurugu over the course of many decades, but their operations were halted in the 2000s. They still had land that was going unused and the chairman indicated that they would be willing to give some of it to Untold. I wasn’t able to travel back to Ghana until November of 2025, but fortunately the board of BILFACU was still willing to give us some of their land. The chairman said he saw us as a “reincarnation” of their initiative, and the treasurer was eager for us to build immediately, to pick up where they were forced to leave off. They gave us 2.5 acres of undeveloped land where we can build our language arts center and continue the legacy of Bimoba language arts education!
When I bid farewell to the members of BILFACU, I told them that it was my goal to return to Bunkpurugu and break ground on the new language arts center in January of 2027. I have a goal of raising $25,000 this year so that we can do so. We’ve created a special Zeffy page here where you can go and give directly to this project—you will automatically receive a tax-deductible receipt and your donation will be highlighted on the side of the page (you can make it anonymous if you wish). Please consider being one of the first people to support this project and literally buy a foundation for our second language arts center. If you prefer to give in a smaller but cumulatively powerful way, you can go here and become an Untold Dollar donor, giving $1 a month alongside many others that will help us build a budget to operate our centers. Of course, you’re welcome to do both!
Thank you so much for your support! I’m excited to make this happen alongside all of you and bring language arts education back to this wonderful, far-flung community!
