World Partners for Development-Ghana/USA



WHAT'S NEW?



'Education That Pays For Itself' Emerging research shows that “the ability to understand and respond to market information is central to the success of youth workforce and enterprise development” (Macaulay and Meissner 2009).



World Partners for Development-Ghana, who won the 3rd Prize award in the Pan African Awards for Entrepreneurship in Education 2012 was sponsored by the awards initiator, Teach A Man To Fish, UK to receive the award at the 2013 International Education That Pays For Itself Conference in Paraguay, and also to witness the activities of the San Francisco Agricultural School in Paraguay that generates income to cover 100% of the school’s operating costs. WPD’s award was received by Phil Darko, Director for International Programs, USA/Ghana. This Paraguay conference was not a Suit & Tie model with analysis just being done in the conference room but rather participatory field observations with casual dress.



One will ask, what is this San Francisco Agricultural School (SFAS) that the whole world is travelling to see? SFAS is a free boarding high school and farm for approximately 165 poor youth, ages 15 to19, in the Chaco region of Paraguay. The school has developed a 100% market-driven rural education program that seeks to transform youth into “rural entrepreneurs.” The school generates over $300, 000 a year. If they can do it, you can also support you community schools to be self-sustainable while’s government subsidies are nowhere to be found in the developing world. Learn more at http://www.wpdprojects.org/. (In the picture above, SFAS students preparing fresh milk to produce yogurt and cheese).



WPD - 2013 and Beyond



Phil Darko and the WPD Team 2013 has been an active year for our organization. Our reach is broad with programs across Ghana, and our impact is significant, transforming the lives of thousands of underserved individuals, families, and communities.



Looking forward beyond 2013, WPD-Ghana/USA is taking strong initiative to empower our target groups and communities with innovative social enterprise ideas because external funding to NGOs and communities in Ghana and even around the world has been growing thinner every year and it will continue to decrease. Our existing and planned empowering programs include: Volunteers On Wheels (VOW), which is aimed to engage Ghana students to travel to Ghana's underserved and economically disadvantaged communities during their school holidays to provide maximum hands-on impact on some of our community development and social enterprise programs/projects. If volunteers from foreign countries have the passion to travel to developing countries to support, why can't we empower our community students who have similar education and skills to support their own country's needy communities to acquire more experience for their future employment or entrepreneurship ventures.



WPD is also working hard to involve more Ghana's rural schools in the Teach A Man To Fish's School Enterprise Challenge Commonwealth program so that students and their teachers can work together to plan and launch a profitable business which will go a long way to create positive social and environmental impact.



Share ideas or partner at info@wpdprojects.org