Agordome School Report

We were delighted when Mercy Adede Bolus invited us to stay in her home in Ghana, as we had never visited an African Country before. We expected it to be different but it was clear right from the start that this holiday was going to be a whole new experience. Fortunately Mercy had arranged for Donna to meet us and be our guide while we were there. She had also given us some names of people to meet and to stay with. One of these names was Naa Peace Cole, and as we wanted to visit different areas of the country we contacted her and arranged to stay with her for 3 nights. It was here we meet Mr Hudson Ablordeppey who talked about the school, and we gave him some books and pencils for the children that we had taken with us. At this point we had know idea of the conditions the children were being taught in.

We had learnt that when we went out with Donna although we usually ended up where we thought we were going he did not tell us where we were going in between so every day was a surprise.

When we got out of the car we realised it was a school as we could hear the children doing their lessons. We were greeted by the Head Mistress who introduced us to all the classes. The children were delightful and gave us a warm welcome but we were astonished to see the state of the classrooms, poor furnishings and lack of teaching aides. We also realized that this was the school that Hudson was referring to when we talked to him.
Back in England we looked at the photos we had taken and decided to try and raise some money to help the school. So on July 1st 2006 we held a Country Evening, which was attended by Kabu Charway, who had actually attended Agordome School, and was representing the Agave Development Association, and we were amazed to find that with the generosity of the Liphook people, we had raised ?2,000 for the Agordome School.
In the mean time the Ghanaian Government had put a new roof on the school so we had to decide what to spend the money on. We did not want it frittered away on little things. It had to be something that would benefit all children so we decided that the money should go towards renovating the whole building to make it a lovely place for the children to want to go to.
The next problem was to find a way of getting the money to the school and to oversee the project. I have to say we were a little worried that once the money went into the school account we would not see the benefits of it. However Mercy introduced us to Samuel Polley, who was studying at the University of Legon in Accra. He was very happy to take the project on as he felt it would help with his studies. He also knew Mr Hudson Ablordeppey so it was agreed that between them, they would be responsible for the money and oversee the project. The Agave Development Association contributed ?100 for Samuel?s transport to the School. We did impress on them that all the money had to be spent on the school building and nothing else. Samuel returned to Ghana in January 2007 and between his studies and a lot of hard work, and with a great deal of help from the good people of the village and school PTA they completed the building by July 2006. The building now has a veranda, plastered walls, new floor, new windows and doors. It has also been brightly painted on the outside. The money that was left over is being used to help renovate the kindergarten classroom from a mud hut to a solid building.

Well done to all those involved in doing such a wonderful job and we hope that this school will now make a big difference to the children and staff that attend it and that it will be continually maintain and improved so that the children get the education they deserve in a building they can be proud of.


It was the same with our stay with Naa Peace. We left her home to visit Major Afeku but after a few minuets we stopped by the side of the road. When we looked to see why we had stopped all we saw was a long building with the roof full of holes and looked about to fall down.