Now What?

As of today, I am officially done with the placement at my host school- Sefwi Bekwai Secondary High School. (It is located in the Western region of Ghana, for those of you who need a visual.) The question that looms before me is:

Now what?

Over the past week, I was able to visit a mine, a cocoa plantation, and several schools, co-teach five social studies classes, and eat Ghanaian food with families around the community who were gracious enough to invite us in. I have established relationships with some amazing teachers who I would like not to forget or ever lose touch with. I have become smitten with this community (not a village, but definitely not a town) and am already looking forward to going back. It has been a fantastic trip.

But how do I capitalize on this experience in the classroom? This is the million dollar question.

I have been lucky to be part of a sister school relationship in the past with a school in Uganda. I learned some very important lessons, namely that it needs to be a RELATIONSHIP.  Too often, these types of partnerships between schools turn into a lot of fundraising but no cooperative learning or connection of students.

In addition, how do I balance the legitimate needs the school has with the concern of creating a dependency on our fundraising? This is the most difficult aspect of creating a partnership with another school half way around the world in an area that is largely being robbed of their natural resources while development is squashed by the economic powerhouses and the international free market.  While I am not opposed to charitable giving, I do worry that the relationship could turn just into a fundraising relationship without the globalized aspect appearing in the classrooms at my school.

These are the questions I need to work out.  But I do hope that we actually can create some sort of permanent presence in one another's schools.

For your viewing pleasure, pictures of when I gave away soccer balls are posted below. This was a BIG DEAL. I knew that soccer balls were the equivalent of gold on this continent, and Ghana in particular, but I did not realize that schools would host school-wide assemblies to accept a few meager soccer balls!  It was so much fun to be on the giving end. I wish the students who had donated the balls were there to see it with their own eyes.