Correspondence from Western Region

Teaching staff and pupils of Allengenzule Roman Catholic Primary School of Jomoro Municipality in the Western Region have commended OKRA Project Ghana, a non-governmental organization (NGO) for constructing a six-unit classroom block for the school.

The school which was established in 1946, was in the news early this year after GhanaWeb Western Regional Correspondent, Daniel Kaku reported the plight of the schoolchildren and teaching staff who study and teach under mango trees.

During our regional correspondent's first visit to the school, he reported that the schoolchildren there had been studying under mango trees for more than six years.

The correspondent also reported that snakes had been falling on the children during class hours.

According to the management of the school, the GhanaWeb news report touched the Chief of Akabaku in the Jomoro Municipality and invited the management of OKRA Project Ghana to help the school.

According to testimonies from some elders of the community, the management of the OKRA Project was touched by the situation and pledged to support the school to get a classroom block for the children.

Speaking at the colourful ceremony to commission the project, the Director of OKRA Project Ghana, Cyprus Nii Sackey, disclosed that they were informed about the situation in the school by the Chief of Akabaku, Nana Tanoe Blay III, and they quickly visited the school to observe the situation.

He said that immediately after their visit, they supplied the school with building materials to complete their already started six-unit classroom block.

He said that the project stalled due to the inability of the school management to raise funds to complete it, hence their intervention.

He took the opportunity to commend the management of the school for using the building materials to complete the project without diverting a single building material.

"Let me put on record that we never gave a penny to the school management to buy any item, we rather bought all the building materials and gave them to the contractor to complete the project and this is how we do our things so nobody should go anywhere to say we gave money to the school management to complete the building, we didn't do it in that way. Let us pray to God bless the Chief of Akabaku for drawing our attention to the problem facing the school and today we are excited that the schoolchildren will have a nice classroom block to sit in to learn", he said.

He charged the schoolchildren to take their studies seriously and become responsible personalities in the future.

"I will tell you schoolchildren here to take your studies seriously so you can become great personalities in Ghana, I challenge you because I'm expecting you to become nurses, doctors, and lawyers in the next fifteen years so that you can help me when I'm old", he implored.

He, therefore, promised that OKRA Project Ghana would continue to support other schools in Ghana to reduce schools under trees drastically and also eliminate bad school buildings in the country.

On his part, the headmaster of Allengenzule Roman Catholic primary school, Anlimah Assuah Augustine alias Augustine Pay, commended OKRA Project Ghana for coming to their rescue.

"Although the community members started the project the support OKRA Project Ghana gave to us, we cannot count them, I can say OKRA Project Ghana deserves all the credit. The PTA, SMC, and Stakeholders of Allengenzule Roman Catholic primary school wish to express our profound gratitude to OKRA Project Ghana for their humanity which we are unveiling today", he expressed appreciation.

"Today will be remembered in the history book of Allengenzule Roman Catholic primary school as well as the community as a whole. The days of snakes falling on learners and staff are over. The day of the destruction of rain during teaching and learning is over"

"We started this new classroom block this year and we can complete it within this year, big thanks go to OKRA Project Ghana, we will not forget our MP, Dorcas Afo-Toffey for also supporting us with money to buy wood to roof it, we also thank the Jomoro Municipal Assembly Coordinating Director for supporting us with some bags of cement, we are most grateful", he stated.

The headmaster seized the opportunity to commend GhanaWeb for reporting the situation facing the school for it to receive national attention.

"As the headmaster of Allengenzule Roman Catholic primary school, I will always remember GhanaWeb.com, they have done well and they deserve commendation. Just this year we were in school and they came here to see the abandoned GETFund classroom block over there and they took videos of it and also saw our schoolchildren studying under these mango trees and they promised to publish it so that the government and other NGOs could come and help us and, their publication yielded positive results, I have realized that GhanaWeb.com is the most online media portal in Ghana, people do read their stories, God bless them abundantly", he emphasized.

The Tufuhene of the Allengenzule community, Francis Kwasi Buah expressed his happiness over the new classroom block.

He assured OKRA Project Ghana that the edifice would be regularly maintained.

He urged parents of the Allengenzule community to invest wisely in their children's education and do away with unnecessary expenses.

"Let me tell parents here that they should stop buying expensive clothes for funerals and use their monies to invest in their children's education. Let me also advise the schoolchildren that they should learn harder so that in future they will not encounter poverty", he advised.