SabreNews

September 2011

issue eight

Reg Charity # 1105489

Akwaaba

School Expeditions

KG Teacher Training

Shama

The summer is always full of exciting developments and goings on both within the Sabre office and the communities where we work. As ever, this summer has seen a number of education and infrastructure projects in fifteen of the villages in which we work, thanks in a large part to our school expedition teams.

We have also begun work on developing a kindergarten teacher training programme with the University of Cape Coast - something that will continue to progress over the course of the next academic year and that we hope to report more on soon.

Expansion plans into the Western region are afoot with the completion of a Needs Assessment and a formal relationship has been established with the Shama District Assembly. This is something we’re particularly excited about and we hope to start work on our first sustainable kindergarten school in Shama during January 2012.

What follows is a selection of things that have been going on over the last quarter. Thank you, as always, for your continued support in helping us to keep growing and enabling us to have a wider impact in Ghana.

The success of our building projects in Dwabor, and now Ayensudo, has sparked interest from neighbouring districts, which offers us the opportunity to expand our field of operations. This has led to an exciting new partnership between Sabre

and the Shama District Asssembly, located in Ghana’s Western Region. Shama is a relatively small district, but early signs all point towards a positive relationship between ourselves and the local government.

For two weeks during July, Sabre staff teamed up with

counterparts from the District Assembly to carry out a Needs Assessment, funded by Webb Fontaine Ghana Ltd. The purpose was to identify which KG schools there require the most urgent repairs, or in some cases total reconstruction to create an acceptable learning environment. The results have confirmed the extent of the challenge. However, we are confident that by working in close partnership with the local authorities and key partners like Arup and Tullow Ghana Ltd, we can offer hundreds of children of Shama the best possible start to their education.

During July, Sabre held a two week intensive training course for KG teachers from six schools in the KEEA Municipality. The course marked the first step in the development of a longer term training and support programme for untrained KG teachers, a

central theme of Sabre’s Whole School Improvement Programme. The course was extremely well received by the teachers, and we are now working to develop a two year training programme which will be accredited by the University of Cape Coast.

This summer was Sabre’s busiest yet in terms of school visits, in addition to three of our own teams from Lord Wandsworth College and Weydon School, Sabre hosted a further 8 teams travelling

on World Challenge or Wilderness Expertise trips.

In all, the student teams completed 19 projects, with school playground construction, classroom refurbishment, library renovation and IT labs all featuring in a diverse and incredibly positive series of projects. Feedback from students and teachers alike has been very positive, and we would like to say a huge

collective thank you to everyone who helped make the summer such a success – notably Beth, Erin, Mike and Thompson from the Ghana team – thank you!

A Toy Box for Ghana

Thank You Summer of Fun(draising)

Contact Us...UKThe Old DairyUnit 5South Lodge CourtIronsbottomSurrey, RH2 8QG.T: +44 (0) 2032 399

GhanaP.O. Box 329Elmina,Central RegionGhanaWest AfricaT. +233 (0) 247 919 469

Webwww.sabretrust.org

Emailtrust@sabretrust.orgvolunteer@sabretrust.org

Proverb“Today is today. Tomorrow is tomorrow. Why do today what you could do tomorrow?” - Overheard on site.

Speak Up for Sabre

Through Arup’s annual Structural Skills Network design competition, a brief was given by Sabre (open to all Arup offices around the world) to design educational toys for Ghanaian children in the form of a toy box. The challenge was to develop a design which would utilise locally sourced sustainable materials - complementing the ethos behind our kindergarten complex design, with the intention of introducing a cost-effective solution to the chronic lack of educational resources at the kindergarten level throughout the region. Nearly 60 teams across five continents competed to deliver a solution to the

challenge, attracting the biggest number of entries in the competition’s history. The final design was selected from a shortlist of three and will be going into production in September following trials throughout the summer. The winning team was made up of Andrea Charlson, James Bartlett and Mercedes Gargallo from Arup’s London office. A huge thank you to everyone who took part, we really appreciate your enthusiasm and commitment to our programme and we look forward to working with local craftsmen and women on future production, which enhances both local livelihoods and education.

Following the fantastic success of our Spirit of Sabre photo competition, coinciding with the opening of the Dwabor kindergarten in February 2010, we are delighted to announce a similar competition to mark the opening of the soon-to-be-completed Ayensudo kindergarten complex.

“Speak up for Sabre: A Picture Tells A Thousand Words” is open to anyone who has travelled to Ghana and been involved with Sabre in any capacity since May 2010 and we would love as many entries as possible. Full details can be

seen on the dedicated website. There are three categories to enter, the titles of which should loosely fit your composition, reflecting your time with Sabre in Ghana. The categories are Mind, Body and Soul. Entries should be emailed to events@sabretrust.org before midnight on 30th September. All winners and runners up will be invited to an event in central London on 24th November 2011 to celebrate the Ayensudo opening. There will be prizes for the winners on the night and the best photos will be on display.

Another busy summer of fundraising is now over. We’ve had dragon boating at Marlow, been charity of the month throughout July at Café Africa in Amersham, taken part in our first Reigate Community Festival, helped stage the Community Outreach course with Reach Cambridge in Cambridge and begun a relationship

with local coffee chain, Urban Kitchen, in Reigate and the surrounding area.As ever it’s been a great way of getting our name out there and creating local awareness whilst at the same time raising much needed funds. If you know of events we should be getting involved in or would like to help next summer then please do get in touch.

A very special thank you to one of this summer’s volunteers, Lisa Melassaccio, who not only managed to volunteer with us for three weeks in July and August, but who was also able to raise an incredible £12,903.72, allowing us to complete the funding for the Ayensudo kindergarten complex. Lisa’s extraordinary

commitment to both her fundraising and volunteering has been amazing and we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of Lisa’s sponsors, in particular the staff, students and parents of the European School in Munich where Lisa teaches. We wish you all the very best for the forthcoming academic year and look forward to staying in touch and showing you what you have helped to achieve!

Annual Report

Have you seen our 2010 - 2011 annual report? If not please do take a look here - we hope you agree that it reflects what was another hugely positive year for Sabre and the schools and communities we work with.