Maire and the Yaarah Schools team work in collaboration with the villages that they are helping, allowing the community to be a part of the change that they are making for themselves. It all started with a desire to make a difference to the life of children in villages that were missing out on the chance of an education because they had no buildings to learn in. Now Yaarah Schools has completed the building of their first school in the Volta region of Ghana and started work on their second project in the North of Ghana.

With the support of friends and family and through a number of fundraising events in the UK Maire has been able to spearhead and advocate for the change in mindset needed to ensure that children all over the world can get access to basic education. Always one to lead by example, Maire recently completed BSc in Community Development and Public Policy whilst working full time at the Department of Education and running Yaarah Schools.

Quote from Maire Tejani MBE:
“I love to see children develop and grow through any form of education. I believe education is a life time gift which not one can take away from you. To give girls’ and women the education and the potential they deserve to flourish is vital for our future. I have always believed I could do a bit more to make a change to people’s lives through the power of education.Thank you to all our volunteers and supporters for making Yaarah Schools a success.”

Last year the YS team voted unanimously to start the project in this village after hearing about the need for our help and the willingness of the village to help. After signing an agreement with the community leaders to work in partnership we started planning for the project.

Zoolanyilli is a small remote village within the Tolon district of Tamale, Northern region of Ghana with around 900 inhabitants. The district is about 2,741sq kilometres big and currently Zoolanyillihas no access to clean water. Proper sanitation Northern region of Ghanais very low and the region has one of the highest poverty rates in Ghana.

At the start of this trip the YS team met with the community leaders, who let us the approve site. The Yaarah Schools team consisted of Yakubu, the foreman with his team Yaw and Alhassan as well as Joe – a volunteer who had travelled from London for to participate on the project. The community leaders assigned local men in groups to be on site each day, which was great because they were very hard working and full of determination. The women were also were put into groups and given the responsibilities of fetching water and providing food for the volunteers to enable them to do the work.It was great to see the whole village putting in all their effort towards helping to build their new school.

The first day was very exhausting for all of us and especially for me as I needed to coach and motivate all volunteers, helping them to understand our way of working and the pace we expected them. This was a bit of challenge because they are used to taking a lot of time to complete task as they do not usually have strict deadlines to meet when building. The community spirit and enthusiasm helped in completing the foundation for the three classroom in about half day. The rest of the first day was spent to complete the concrete for the foundation and raising the building to four level high of laying. The second day saw the level of the blocks rise to the window seat level. Finally on the third day, it was up to the lintel level– this is the level height of the top of a normal door. Yakubu and Yaw who are masons by profession also trained some of the local young men how to mould bricks whilst we were there and the locals continued which the bricks in our absent. YS also invested in sixty mango and orange trees as there was a fraction of our money left and so was put in good use.

Joe and I met with the both the district director, his assistant and engineer. They promised to give Yaarah Schools the full support throughout the duration of the project. We returned back to Accra on 4th April 2013.

Volta Region
On 5th May, Joe and I dashed off to the Adaklu Aziedukope Primary School in the Volta region of Ghana (our first project). We arrived at the school mainly to see the maintenance and development of the school since it was completed last year. Luckily for us, it was the day all district schools came together for a cultural competition. After watching different schools competing, the results favoured Adaklu Aziedukope Primary School and the won they competition! The school building and the equipment have been well maintained with all broken furniture and doors repaired by the community carpenters.

“The schools has 7 teachers 5 of whom are qualified. Many children have transferred to this school from other neighbour schools because parent in surrounding villages are seeing the discipline with in this school. Enrolment has increased since last year” Mr Adeti Noah – Headteacher.

The women in the village have been making good use of the women’s skills development that is taking place using the school premises. The women have increased their personal profits by continuing to make doughnuts and sell on market days and at other gatherings within the villages. It was great to see the difference the school building has made to the whole village!

Words: Maire Tejani, Founder of Yaarah Schools

Come down to 93 Feet East on Brick Lane, to enjoy the vibrant atmosphere and great music. Fusionite 2012 will bring together live music, performance poetry and more, to celebrate the success of Yaarah Schools.

Hosted once again by Remel London. It will be a night to remember so come and enjoy the great music and much more.

See you soon!

Thank you to all the supporters, volunteers and our host 93 Feet East.

Department of Education is dispensing with under-desk computers, as they move to secure and cost-effective ‘cloud’ computing. Their Dell GX620s are being released to Department of Education’s contractor, Northern Realisations Ltd, who cleanse the data and sell the equipment second-hand. These computers might no longer be useful for the department, and are not worth much in the UK – but for impoverished schools in Africa they could make a huge difference. In particular, they could help hundreds of unqualified teachers to train and get a career.

The charity Yaarah Schools, founded by Maire Tejani (Family Strategy Division), is buying back some of this cleansed equipment from Northern Realisations. We will ship 100 working computers to named schools in northern Ghana (West Mamprusi district). Vodafone Ghana have agreed to connect these workstations to the internet, free. Dell Computers have agreed to pay for transportation. The Open University has provided training software. VSO volunteers there will help with training. All this means that the net cost of a fully refurbished, internet-connected workstation, delivered and installed, is just £50. If you sponsor one, the teacher in charge of it in its new life will email you, and tell you how it’s being used to help them become qualified!

If you are interested in making a donation (and it doesn’t have to be the full £50), then follow this link: http://www.justgiving.com/computers2ghana

Fundraising campaigns and events:

Spring – Summer 2012

• July 2012 – Estelle Regis ran the British 10k in London – £400
• May 2012 – Peter Grime ran the BUPA Great Manchester Run – £150

Autumn – Winter 2011

• September 2011 – Fusionite 2012 – £600

• September 2011 – Maire and Adizah Tejani ran the Adidas Women’s 5k Challenge in London – £595

Your support enabled us to complete and open five classrooms on our Spring 2012 visit in April.

We have a range of designers from around Africa. All our designers showcased in African Fashion Week, so come down and see the designs for yourself. 

Come and experience tasty Ghanaian food, listen to inspirational music and enjoy the great atmosphere! 

In the run up to the show we will be featuring the designers and performers who will be there on the night! So stay tuned! 

Click on our facebook event page to find out more! 

For more information and to take part see our Facebook Page or email yaarahschools1@gmail.com. We look forward to some great football matches!

With this being my sixth visit to Ghana as the founder of Yaarah Schools I was glad to be joined on the first half of the visit by Janet Moore.  On the second half of this trip, I was joined by Russ Aziz and Kerry Hope.  Janet and I arrived in Accra on Saturday 26th March, very tired and all we wanted was to rest until the following day.  On our third day we travelled to the Volta region where Adaklu Aziedukope is located early in the morning.  Our arrival at the project site was unannounced at 12 noon, as we wanted to take the villagers by surprise in order to get a genuine picture of how the classrooms were being used and the progress being made.  We had to go through the formalities, this included visiting the chief and his elders to acknowledge our arrival to the village.  This is a culture which exists in almost all the Ghanaian communities and it shows respect for the chief and elders of the village.  Janet and I had a useful discussion about the project.  We went to all the classrooms to say hello to the children before having a meeting with the teachers to find out about some of their problems they are facing regarding teaching in the school.

We then went on to meet with the members of the school building committee to agree on the materials needed for the continuation of the block of two classrooms.  With all materials ready, the skilled men and the volunteers from the village got straight to work.

We provided both the school and the adult education students some useful educational materials and football kits for the children provided by charitable organisation Afrikit  www.afrikit.co.uk .

Maire and the team will be sharing more Tales from Ghana over the coming months. Have a look at the photographs from the trip here.