‘Bokemei’ in the Ghanaian ‘Ga’ language, literally is: ‘You and others’ - which means co-operation. The founder and President is Alhaji Abbey, a native of Gadangme land who has lived 30 years in the Netherlands. He has himself experienced squalor, diseases and poverty with no end in sight. But with the help of other people he succeeded in surmounting those challenges.

Now Abbey can look back at the years and say his vision of helping the needy from his native land of Accra and its suburbs is about to be fully realised.

‘Bokemei’ Foundation, assisted with funds from organisations and individuals in the Netherlands is on course of completing a school known as ‘knowledge centre’, a project which will help an impoverish society and evidence on the ground shows it can go further than that. The school will cater for young pupils, school drop outs, single mothers and the jobless who will acquire some skills as vocational students.

Abbey spoke about the project from his base in Amsterdam where he resides with his Dutch wife, Lea Kloosterman - Secretary of the Foundation. The couple have been to Ghana several times and taken along a number of Dutch nationals whose efforts among others has been helping to fund the Foundation project located at Tebibiiamli in Teshie, a suburb of the city, Accra. He said the land for the project was donated by chiefs and elders at Teshie and the foundation, formed in 2002, has the main aim of helping the needy, orphans in the slums of Accra to go to school. “Knowledge is Power”, he says and that’s why ‘Bokemei’ is building a ‘knowledge centre’ consisting of education, junior high school, training and employment.

The project has reached an advanced stage with completion of some classrooms where pre-school is already in session since January of this year. “We are grateful to our sponsors in the Netherlands for their donations on the project,” he mentioned. Eleven volunteers from Rainbow Soul Club in Amsterdam where also recently in Ghana for an art project at the school where they decorated the walls of ‘Bokemei’ school site with variations on original Ghanaian ‘kente’ patterns and according to President Abbey, they organised a party for children from Teshie and La (two suburbs of Accra) who are going to be students of the school. “The children were drawing, painting, decorating textiles and watching children films. It was such a nice experience but it was unfortunate the group stayed just a couple weeks,” he said.

The President of the Foundation indicated the project also consists of farms where lands have been bought in the suburbs of Accra and are currently under cultivation of cassava. “Cassava throughout Africa is cheap and a nutritious staple food that can be eaten and used in so many different ways. ‘Bokemei’ recently started a pilot project with small farms from areas that has problem with marketing. Cassava is perishable, ‘Bokemei’ helps with labour, transportation, processing, marketing and training - thus food production may increase. Profits will be used to cover part of running cost of the school,” he pointed out.

Lea Kloosterman who was also in Accra last year said she was satisfied with progress of work at the school. “Our current problem is to pay for the salaries each month of the few teachers we have employed. It was joy for me to have the children learn something from the school which will help them in the future.

She praised the efforts of the few organisations and individuals in the Netherlands whose contribution is helping to build the school. “We started this project from our own resources as pensioners but I am happy the efforts we have made are yielding good results. We are asking people to donate for this worthy cause,” she added. Bokemei Foundation: www.bokemei.nl e-mail: info@bokemei.nl Tel. 0031.206.826.352 or 0031.623.929.720

- Reggie Tagoe in Amsterdam, Netherlands. (e-mail:rtagoe@live.com)