German-Ghanaian Development Aid Association

The Day Nursery and Kindergarten in Teshie

Teshie is a fast growing town in the catchment of Accra, the capital city of Ghana. The whole area is developing very fast and there are many uncompleted houses where poor relatives of the owners are acting as house keepers. Many families are separated due to rural migration. Traditionally the women take the main responsibility in the families in Ghana, and are handicapped through it, because they contrive with the child education alone and have no family to lean on.

The public schools are far away and the private schools in the neighbourhood are so expensive that many people cannot afford the school fees. That is the reason why many children are not going to school. To compensate the lack of low cost schools and kindergartens the German-Ghana Development Aid Association has established a day nursery and kindergarten in the developing area of Teshie/Ghana. Our target group are single mothers and families with low income.

Members of the Teshie Mannoyaa Kpee and volunteers of the Deutsch-Ghanaischer Entwicklungshilfe-Verein e.V. (German-Ghanaian Development Aids Association) are supervisors of the project. They were purchasing the building material, accepted the bids, selected and paid the workers. The building has 2 classrooms, a sick bay, a staff room and sanitary facilities.

The facility was opened in October 2009 and has developed very successful. Experienced kindergarten personnel and teachers take care of the children. The usual lunch and in-between meals are served by the associated kitchen. Qualified personnel from Germany together with the local teachers have developed a concept for the project. The main aim is nonviolent education and learning methods appropriate to the children's age.

The day nursery and kindergarten is named The Bridge and was registered as Early Childhood Development Centre at the Ghana Educational Service. It is checked regularly.

Primary School in Teshie

The active parents council has requested for a primary school to continue the education following the same principles as in the kindergarten and so we started a new project at ending of 2011. With beginning of the academic year 2012/2013 the first children were moving to the new classrooms and in 2013 the upgrade as a primary school was completed. The Project was financed by development funds of the German government, donations and voluntary work of the members of the association.

Volunteers from Germany are supporting the staff of the school helping us to improve the educational level. A teachers exchange program with our partner school in Morley/UK has been started in 2014 and will be continued in June/July this year. Both schools take part in action days like word water day etc.

Due to the very successful development of the project – in January 2015 we had more than 130 pupils – we had to divide the day nursery and the kindergarten into two groups. This means we need again more classrooms and we need to top up the building. The first constructional measures have been processed but the main work will be done during school holidays in order to prevent accidents and to keep the disturbances as low as possible.