Short story Writing Competition sponsored by The Rotary Club of Tooting

The Club has kindly raised £400 for the work of TEABAG in Ghana and thought it might be a good time to propose a more imaginative and productive project for our charity. This would be open to all pupils at the three schools, split into age groups and probably set on a limited range of subjects. Cash prizes would be given to the best in each age group, with some small gift for each of the children who had entered a story for the competition.

To read the winning stories of the Writing Competition please Click here.

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In October 2007 the village Elders made available a site situated on the outskirts of the village for a Vocational Skills Centre to be erected. There was a breezeblock building with a tin roof at the front of the plot, which for very little money has been transformed into a new Vocational Skills Centre (VSC). We shall start by offering four subjects only and when the project is up and running we will add more to our syllabus. We will offer Catering and Hospitality, IT and Computing, Textiles / Fabric printing and Construction.

In the building there is a central space with a tiled floor, which will be used for a multitude of purposes. It will be the first community space in the village. During the daytime it will provide a teaching area for our textiles department, while in the evening this room will provide a community theatre, where we will be able to show films and educational documentaries. We will also generate an income for the centre as we shall rent it out for weddings, wakes and parties. At the front of the building there is a secure room, of about 16 foot square which will house our Computing Department. We have been very lucky to receive sponsorship from a large British company called VT. They have offered to put in a ten computer suite and a satellite dish which will give our facility one of the quickest internet connections in Ghana.  Running down the left-hand side of the building we have created a new Catering Department. To start with, our students will learn basic cooking skills which we will try out on the village! We will be able to feed a school class quite regularly and this will increase the nutrition of our community.

The space running down the right hand side of the building is taken up by a room known as ‘The TEABAG Room’. A room furnished as a hotel bedroom, with en-suite which the hospitality students will use to learn domestic skills. On this side of the building is also a teaching room for English, Maths and Business studies and Centre manager’s office.

We hope to try to start the college with 30-45 students which we will need to get sponsored.

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By Roger Gillman

When I go to Ghana on business, I usually buy food at one of the few supermarkets that cater for the overseas visitors and expats. It is considerably more expensive than popping to your local Asda because everything has to be imported. Recently, food price inflation has been in the news and so I did a little price survey to see what food costs are like in the rural villages. The first noticeable thing was that all foodstuffs are sold in very small quantities. Where we would buy a decent sized bag of rice, sugar or salt, the villages purchase small amounts wrapped in twisted cling film or small plastic bags. When I roughly calculated the costs per kilo, I found that they are actually paying more for their basic foodstuffs than we do in the UK. Bread, fruit, root vegetables have all gone up in price. It is no wonder then that the children seems to develop physically much slower than their counterparts in the "West". Most of the children in the villages are lucky if they get one good meal a day. Added to the general level of poverty is the problem of high inflation, although at 20% Ghana is doing better than many African countries.

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The Young Fund Raiser of the Year Award this year goes to Bella Gibbs, aged 9 years, from Battersea. Bellas has persuaded her whole family to get involved and between them they now sponsor then children. Bella didn't stop there: she devised her own fund raising scheme and decided on holding a Yard Sale. She produced leaflets and posters to advertise the event in her locality and sold various household items, homemade cards, books, toys and a bicycle. Bella, with her brother Daniel and sister Taluda, gave TEABAG £203.52 from the successful sale. Well done Bella.

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