Rainford build links with Ghana

A group of Year 12 students from Rainford Sixth Form have returned home after successfully building Ghana’s first STEM centre.

The trip was the fourth time Rainford Sixth Form has supported the UK charity Book Cycle by teaming up with Ghanaian charity Thrive Africa.

Book Cycle is a local volunteer-run charity which seeks to empower children and adults at home and abroad through the provision of free books.

Thrive Africa uses volunteers to turn community spaces and classrooms into libraries by painting and building furniture in Ghana.

During the trip, the students transformed three empty rooms in local schools into libraries providing much needed resources.

These libraries will provide a lifeline for local children, allowing them to access much needed educational materials and allow local teaching staff to inspire and equip a whole generation of children with the power of learning, knowledge and education.

As well as building school libraries, the students also built hand-washing stations. These stations in schools and the local orphanage will allow children to wash their hands and learn about the importance of hygiene through information posters and games.

In conjunction with Year 10 students and Unilever, the sixth formers trialled different soaps and next year will return to the same area to see how much of an impact these hand-washing facilities have had.

Hannah Moreton, pastoral manager said: “The main focus of the project was to build Ghana’s first ever science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) centre.

“The students painted the local community centre, installed computers in one room, and turned the other into an information library.”

This STEM centre will loan science and maths equipment to over 300 schools across the Ashanti region.

Hannah adds: “The sixth form aim to return next year to fill the STEM centre with even more equipment and will build on this year on year.

“The trip was an absolute success and the sixth form would like to thank Thrive Africa, AJ Bell, Cowley International College, book cycle and STEM UK for their kind donations.”

The new Year 12 intake will soon begin their fundraising efforts and will return to Kumasi next July.