July 14

Today was one of those days when your camera stays in the bag—not because there was nothing of interest to photograph, but because stopping to take pictures would have interrupted the flow.

Mr. Frank’s taxi brought us to Dannacks Senior High School and a meeting with its head, Mr. Justice, teacher Madam Aborgeh, and their students.  Mr. Justice had told me about Dannacks during a meeting a few days ago.  It works with students who struggled in junior high school and would otherwise be unable to attend senior high school.  A high proportion of them then do well on the exams that determine whether or not they can go to university, and many have gone on to excel at university and beyond.  I enjoyed meeting the students, many of whom are keen for the school to join Yo Ghana!  Mr. Justice is also very interested in developing in students a love of poetry in a nation in which rote learning is still emphasized.

We then made our way to my favorite place, Ashesi University, where I had the pleasure of meeting with Madam Carolina and the inspiring students who constitute the very first Teach for Ghana cohort.  This September they will go, in pairs, into fifteen rural, low-performing schools in Ghana and work to transform them.  We are hoping to partner with them, as the prospect of writing to a friend in Ghana can be a great incentive to learn to write for students in such schools.  It was an honor and a privilege to speak with and listen to this band of pioneering educators talk about how they intend to go about the work of providing an excellent education for every student in Ghana.  You could feel the trajectory of Ghana education shift under our feet.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Mr. TK, an Ashesi administrator who in his spare times brings Canadian university students to Ghana to help to activate in them a desire to serve their communities back home and started Future of Africa, a program serving about fifty of Accra’s many street children.  More about that soon.

The long day ended with a nice long visit with board member Dr. Williams, who is also a dear friend.  Years ago Wendy told me that the best way to start and organization is to invite the people you most respect to join it, and when Dr. Williams agreed to join us, it was a wonderful day.