Youth in Ghana
The expense of elementary and junior high school is subsidized by Ghana's government, making this level of education accessible to almost all children. High schools, however, are minimally funded government boarding schools or private boarding schools where students live during the school term. The annual expense of tuition, supplies, and other fees, which is equivalent to $700 USD, falls on families or individual teens to provide.
For many of Anansi students, the annual household income of their entire family is equal or less than the annual cost of high school — making it impossible for parents to continue their children's education.
Without a high school degree, steady employment is extremely difficult to obtain. Teens out of school try to support themselves, and sometimes entire families, by peddling merchandise on crowded streets. Income is unreliable and there is little protection against exploitation or crime.
Many of our alumni work as elementary school teachers, for local businesses, or are continuing their education through vocational school or university.
Dina and Theresa
In January of 2010, Kathryn Roe sought out two half sisters who qualified to be sponsored the previous fall, but for whom Anansi did not have the funds or sponsors to send either student to high school.
Dina and Theresa's stories were shared at Anansi's annual auction in 2010. That evening, Ron Reddell pledged to sponsor both sisters and they began high school together at Edinaman in the fall of 2010. The account of their daily lives during the year they spent without funds for school is vivid example of what many students seeking sponsorship through Anansi face.
Kathryn's account of her visits with them illustrates the daily life that most unprivileged youth in Ghana face without continued education:
Last year they achieved test scores of 18 for Dina and 20 for Theresa, but Anansi had no sponsors for them to go to school last fall. They have been at home waiting during this school year for the chance to go to school. Regina, their older sister who has done some work for me in the past, took me first to Dina's house in Abura and then to visit Theresa here in Mpeasem, my village. It would have been impossible to find my way to either house without a guide.
I talked with both girls. Here is what Dina had to say when I questioned her about school, why she still wants to go and what she has been doing with herself this past year while not in school.
"I want to achieve something in the future. I will go to high school and learn so I will beable to know what I want to do."
"After household chores (sweeping, fetching water, cleaning utensils, going to the market to sell eggs), I study my books from last year: Math, English, and General Science. I also take care of four year old Rita and three year old Emanuel when my sister, their mother, is at the market selling bread."
Dina sleeps on the only bed in a nine foot by eleven foot room with her mother's fifteen year old sister and two younger brothers ages eight and six. The three others in the room sleep on the floor on a matt that is rolled out each night. I asked Dina if she had any questions for me. She said,"I would like to know if I will get a scholarship and if I do, who I will get it from."
I did not ask to go into Theresa's living quarters (it didn't seem okay) so we visited outside with her mother and an old woman I learned just as we were leaving was her grandmother, age eighty five. From Theresa:
"My father died in July, 2009. My mother is not well enough to work. I want to go to school so I can achieve my aim of becoming a nurse. I like science and general arts. My mother has no brothers or sisters so she alone has to cater for the six of us: Benjamin (he has a job teaching in an elementary private school, but wants to go to university), Albert who is learning carpentry, Vida, who is in school in Mpeasem, Regina, and Faustina, who is married with one child. Benjamin is living at his father's brother's house near the school where he teaches."
I asked Theresa what she has been doing this year.
"I've been doing household chores for a certain woman at Mpeasem New Site. I sweep, fetch water, wash utensils and clothes and take care of her children ages two years and two months. I work ten hours per day, seven days a week from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m."
Theresa is paid twenty seven cedies per month, which is about $20 USD.
