The District Director of Education of the Shai-Osudoku District, Ms. Harriet Lomotey has praised the remarkable efforts of Spring-UP Global Network in working together with the school and community of Agbekotsekpo to renovate and stock the school library with learning resources for the school. She was the Guest of Honour at the ceremony that saw the entire community, community leaders, Education officers, Teachers and the student body of Agbekotsekpo D/A Basic School come together amidst a spectacular display of talents to commission what the Headmaster, Mr. Joseph Danso described as one of their greatest wishes granted.
Spring-UP Global Network (SUGN) is a not-for-profit organization promoting literacy and empowering disadvantaged children since it was established in 2019. Since then, it has provided teaching and learning materials to seven (7) schools and orphanages in Central, Ashanti, Volta and the Greater Accra Regions of Ghana and has impacted a total of 2425 beneficiaries through 13 projects and 4 flagship programmes.
The iRead iLead campaign is one of the flagship programmes that was launched in January, 2020 as a 10-year strategic educational programme to improve literacy and encourage children to read in rural parts of Ghana. As part of the campaign, they partner with schools each year to refurbish their school library. Since the launch of the campaign in January 2020, SUGN has refurbished 2 school libraries and established 2 Readers and Writers Clubs in these schools. The first was commissioned in February 2021 in Yevi D/A Basic School located in the Volta Region. Agbekotsekpo D/A Basic School is privileged to be the second school to benefit from the iRead iLead Campaign project.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony on Thursday 31st March 2022,, the founder and president of SUGN, Ms. Akorfa Akoto reiterated, “As an NGO working in the education sector, we believe that making libraries available and accessible to children is a key step to improving literacy and supporting the Government’s efforts in fighting learning poverty in schools.”
She concluded by indulging all and sundry to give their respective quotas to the sustainability of the renovated library. “Ladies and Gentlemen, the first part of the work is complete but we have much more work ahead of us after today. I call on all stakeholders of education in this community including teachers and parents to ensure that the library and the reading club that will be launched today achieves its purpose. I am a big believer in collective effort and sustainable impact. This is why I want to remind each one of us to continuously play our unique roles as stakeholders in education so that this school library and reading club will impact many children who enrol in this school”, she said.
The Guest of Honour, Ms. Harriet Lomotey also took the opportunity to educate parents and everybody gathered on the importance of reading and developing proficiency in the English Language. According to her, the English Language forms the basis of expression and understanding of all other subjects. She added that the government saw the importance of this and hence introduced a new programme nicknamed T2E plus (Transition To English) Learning into the curriculum of Basic 1 to Basic 3. This programme seeks to encourage bilingual literacy among Basic 1 to Basic 3 learners so that learners can transfer literacy skills from their local languages as they interact at home and in the community to English when they get to school.
Spring-UP Global Network remains indebted to its cherished donors, members, the community and school of Agbekotsekpo and all stakeholders of education involved in bringing this library project to life.
