It was joy and fanfare on the weekend, when the 60 pupils from St Nicholas Preparatory School at Tema New Town, visited the PSC Tema Shipyard on an excursion of MT Nippon Princess, a tanker vessel.

It all started at noon when the pupils of the school, which serves underprivileged children in the mainly sprawling Tema fishing community accompanied by the staff, arrived at the shipyard, where the tanker belonging to the Tsakos Group, had docked for maintenance works.

The naval cadet corps and cultural troupe thrilled the Tsakos Group, the major sponsors of the school to about 30 minute’s bout of military drills and cultural performances that attracted applause from the amused crew of the ship.

Captain Ilias Koufoudakis; captain of the 21- crew ship and Bishop Savvas of the Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church inspected a guard of honour mounted by the cadet corps after which the pupils donated various items to the Tsakos Group. The crew in turn also offered gifts to all the 60 pupils.

“It is part of the policy of the Tsakos Group to use some of the revenue it earns in Ghana to support the school.”

The Tsakos Group have been involved in the country since the early 80’s and among other interventions sponsored the Tsakos Junior Athletic Championships through which, Ghana has been able to send a considerable number of athletes to study and train in the US.

Captain Tsakos is the Honorary Consult of Ghana in Greece and is expected to attend the 5th EU-Africa Business Forum in Brussels on April 2– April 3, with the goal to consolidate EU-Africa relations.

The Hellenic-African Chamber of Commerce will also be sponsoring a roundtable dubbed: “Maritime Transport, Maritime Logistics and Ports Maritime Safety.”

Mr. Ioannis Zoulakis, Superintendent Engineer of the ship said in an interview that the excursion would enable some of the pupils to consider sailing as a career in future.

Madam Deborah Eleazar of the Tsakos Group said the ship donates a number of items to the school on a sustainable basis.

Beginning with 28 children from four to six years in one class, the school now has 60 children in four classes, with seven permanent teaching staff.

The school was named after St Nicholas, a bishop in the 4th century in Greece, who developed a reputation for giving gifts.

Among the Greeks and the Orthodox Church, he was considered to be the patron saint of sailors, fishermen, ships and the sea.

There are also long term plans for a vocational college to be constructed to teach skills such as information technology, and tourism.

The school hosts the Holy Transfiguration Cathedral of Accra.