FUSIONITE is back again…!

As the year comes to an end Yaarah Schools turns 3 years old and we invite you to join us at Fusionite 2012 on November 13th at 93 Feet East- Brick Lane. FUSIONITE started in 2010 and this year we are back with another event to remember.

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.

Tales from Ghana: Spring 2011

In this blog post Maire Tejani, the Founder of Yaarah Schools gives an insight into her latest trip to Ghana with some of our volunteers.

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.

Connecting schools around the world

Earlier this month three team members (Maire, TJ and Adizah) from Yaarah School’s, visited Heartwood Small School in the village of Heartwood in West Sussex.

Yaarah Schools were invited by Lynne Fonieles a trustee of Heartwood Small School . Lynne thought the school would benefit from linking with schools that we work with in Ghana. Heartwood School is a very small school at Heartwood village.  It has 16 children from ages 11-14 years of age. It is situated in a  beautiful park ,which forms part of a National Park in West Sussex. The children are currently being taught a in classroom that is also used as a scout hut,  yet hope to build their own school in the near  future.

From Waterloo it took about an hour to get to Petersfield, where we were met by Lynne, who drove us through many country lanes to the picturesque  village of Heartwood  to the school.  We were warmly received by the children and teachers. That morning the children had a lesson on Ghanaian culture, geography and history; so had high expectations and many interesting questions.
After a short meeting of introduction with the Lynne and Loic (another teacher at the school), it was soon time for lunch! We had a tasty vegetarian lunch with the children and teachers, which made us, remember our own enjoyable school days. During the lunch the teachers and the children had time to chat with us informally and find out more about us.

After lunch the there was a slight technology  blip, which meant our presentation slides had to wait. Quickly the Loic and Adizah came up with plan B, while we waited for a replacement laptop. The class was divided into two groups, Maire showed the children the pictures of the Yaarah School project and Adizah used her laptop to explain more about our history and the many exciting ways we raise money in the UK, from fashion/music events to quiz nights.

In the end presentation went well and we were able to talk more with the children about Yaarah Schools work and what we are trying to achieve. The question and answer session was great fun and the children had many interesting questions and ideas. TJ was on hand to provide answers for questions on Ghanaian history and geography. The children learnt about the conditions in the Adaklu Aziedukope  primary school, the lack of education materials and lack of basic sanitation – such as a toilet. We even talked about  what solutions they thought may work best. One idea was to design a composted toilet for Yaarah Schools to use in it project after the classrooms were built. They had ideas on how they would fundraise for Yaarah Schools and wanted to visit Ghana to see the project for themselves. They also wanted to learn something from the children in  Ghana and thought a great way may be through a pen pals scheme.

We finally ended the day by talking through how the two schools could work together to benefit classrooms on both sides of the world.  Just as we were about to wrap up ,we were presented with a gift for the children of Adaklu Aziedukope primary school. Maire and the team are currently on our Spring 2011 trip and will deliver the presents, while sharing the news about our amazing visit to Hartwood Small School.

Tales from Ghana 2010: The Village Part 2

By Maire Tejani, Founder and  CEO of Yaarah Schools

Alex the local councillor  introduced us as customs demand, as the new people in villege to the senior chief and his elders in the first week.

This senior chief governs more than 30 villages in the local area including Aziedukope.  At the project site, work started with the foundations of the 3 new classrooms.  We also learnt that whenever there was a funeral in a village, the villagers and the neighbouring villages are very reluctant to do work.

This is the culture in this part of the country. Everything except the preparation for the funeral will be at stand still for at least a week.  Unfortunately for us within the 2 weeks that we were there, there were 4 funerals!  We actually managed to do some work by bringing additional workers from other villages and Accra to help withthe project work. This helped accelerate the progress of the work and the additional hands were wonderful. Read more >>

Respect….!

The theme for this month is Respect and its importance in all that we do.  The project in Ghana has brought together two completely different styles of working together.  The more relaxed style of the villagers of Aziedukope and the more structured way of working that we have here in the UK.  As Yaarah Schools is working in partnership with the villagers to build solid structures it is important that we respect their culture and way of working whilst introducing them to new ideas that could enhance them. 

Read more >>