Nakpanduri Girls' Dormitory Project

The dorm is DONE!

2008-04-09T11:00:00.004+01:00

At a lively dedication ceremony on April 2nd, 2008, the Nakpanduri Business Secondary School Girls' Dormitory was officially opened. After an opening prayer from the Nakpanduri Imam, speeches from NABSS Headmaster Duut Peter Jatuat, the Presiding Member of the Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo District Assembly, Peace Corps Ghana Country Director Bob Golledge, and remarks from me (some in Moar - the local language), the dormitory was commissioned and the program closed with a prayer from Nakpanduri Assemblies of God Paster Thomas Lambon. The program also included two cultural drumming and dancing performances by the NABSS Cultural Troupe.

For the school and for the whole of Nakpanduri, the completion of this dorm represents a a great achievement in community cooperation. The community of donors were also a crucial part of this cooperative achievement. To all of you who supported me and this project - you have really done a great thing to help Nakpanduri and you have built a lasting connection to that community. Nakpanduri and I will forever be grateful to you for your contributions.

For the girls of NABSS, this dormitory represents an opportunity. It's a drastic improvement to their living situation and to their educational possibilities. For some of them, it might alleviate one of the key conditions keeping them trapped in the cycle of poverty. For them it really means that much. They are very grateful.

I am also very grateful to have had the opportunity to be the conduit for this cooperation between two communities for which I care deeply. I am grateful for my whole Peace Corps experience in Nakpanduri, for all the friends I've gained and the lessons I've learned. The completion of the girls' dormitory was a wonderful capstone to that experience.

A million thanks to all those who made it possible. God bless you all!

Carl

The Home Stretch...

2008-03-25T22:05:00.002Z

Greetings once again everyone!

As of March 20th, all the "plastering" is finished (this is the concrete work on top of the block work that makes everything smooth and nice - there's no dry walling...), the wooden ceilings have been constructed, and all electrical work is laid and ready to be connected. I left Nakpanduri with my headmaster, headed for Tamale for one last shopping trip. We bought "burglar proof" mesh and screens for the windows, paint, and door hardware - spending the LAST of my PCPP money! While I had hoped the flooring would be done and the windows installed - Mr. Jatuat assured me that this was to be done within two days of my returning to Tamale (presumably...it's done by now). The next pictures I send will be of the COMPLETED dormitory, with ASSEMBLED bunkbeds and HAPPY students! The program on April 2nd should be very interesting. The Peace Corps Ghana Country Director, Bob Golledge, is making the long trek from Accra to attend - and I'm giving a speech...partially in the local language! I'll try to get a picture of the astounded faces as I speak...

I'm astounded by your generosity and support. Thanks for making my last few months such a success!

Carl

"UNICEF Blue" nets smell funny...

2008-03-08T18:59:00.000Z

Hey everybody -

Here are two of the Tamale Sub-Office guards modeling the NABSS girls' dormitory bunk beds complete with treated blue UNICEF bed nets! (The mattresses are not included sadly...) The bed nets DO smell a little funny, but that's because they're fancy and treated with insecticide. Supposedly, the net is designed with bigger holes than conventional nets to let more air flow, but the mosquitos still can't pass through them - AND the chemical is supposed to be effective for 5 years! As a last bonus, the Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service gave me the bargain price of 1.00 Ghana cedi per net - even less than their usual subsidized selling price of 2.00 Ghana cedis - so I went ahead and bought 100 nets! Little by little my to-do list is shrinking...

Carl

One month to go...

2008-03-06T22:36:00.004Z

We're a little bit behind schedule all of a sudden, but after my last visit, I'm 100% confident we'll be done by the end of March. Why am I so sure? The headmaster told me that one reason the roofing was delayed was that the workers were engaged in other projects in town and he had a hard time sometimes getting them to focus on our project. My solution: the same thing that generally works on me - food. I gave the headmaster enough money to feed all the workers extra well everyday from now until the end of the month and threw in a decent monetary bonus if we can make the deadline(up until now the unskilled labor has been either totally voluntary - school staff members - or the very low paid help of the skilled mason and carpenter. I was able to do this because we're anticipating coming out a little bit UNDER budget - even after adding the electrical work on the dorm!) The mason and carpenter assured me that they would stay with the dormitory project until it's totally finished. I also scheduled another quick trip in two weeks. I've asked them to have everything done at that point besides the painting. This thing's gonna get done - and I'll have the pictures to prove it!!!

Carl

PS - Check out that ginormous cell phone tower with the mud hut in the foreground!

Ready to roof!

2008-02-14T09:08:00.003Z

As I walked up to the school's administration block, the mason and the team of communal laborers were laying the blocks on the two end gables, the last bit of blockwork to be completed before roofing could begin. Just two days before, the truckload of wood from Techiman - a large market town in central Ghana - had arrived at N.A.B.S.S. We're ready to roof this thing! The next time I get up to Nakpanduri the first week in March, the roofing, celing, plastering, and flooring will all be completed. All the materials are there, the workers have been paid - there's no reason this shouldn't happen. The headmaster and I will then go to Tamale together and buy EVERYTHING that's needed to complete the dorm - paint, window screens and burglar proofing, the doors and locks, and electrical wiring.
My last visit to Nakpanduri will be the 29th of March. Invitations will go out shortly for the commisioning ceremony to be held on that date...

YOU ARE ALL INVITED!!!

Bunkbeds in progress...

2008-02-01T16:14:00.000Z

Happy February everybody -

It's almost been another month since my last update - and for that, I apologize. Rest assured, the project is still moving along extremely well. Reports from my headmaster are that they have started roofing! He has been down to see me in Tamale every two weeks or so and we've purchased the remainder of the lumber for the project and the window glass and frames. There's no way for me to get digital pictures of the current progress unless I go up there myself - and I've been swamped at the Peace Corps office pretty much since New Years. We are still in the middle of the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament, which has been very exciting for Tamale - the Chinese built us a brand new stadium! I went to two games and brought along my friend Jerry from Nakpanduri and his son Maxwell. It was an incredible experience for them. I hope to go up to Nakpanduri within the next two weeks and post more pictures.

In the meantime, I've commissioned a guy in Tamale to build the bunkbeds with the extra $4,000 my mother raised through more of your generous contributions. At 90.00 Ghana cedis each ($1 ~= 0.95 GH cedis), I will be able to build all of the 40 beds the dorm will be able to hold and have a little left over. I'm still looking around for a source of subsidized or free mosquito nets - as I might have to use that left over money just to transport the beds up to Nakpanduri from Tamale. The beds are solid. They're made from custom welded iron, four massive bolts will hold them together and enable easy assembly in Nakpanduri, and a carpenter will build cross-boards. These will rival the nicest bunkbeds I've seen at ANY school in all of Ghana. Pretty nice for little Nakpanduri. Here's a picture of them under construction and lined up along the road. More to come soon!

Carl

Progress - small small...

2008-01-06T20:22:00.000Z

The project is moving along - as we say in Ghana: small small. Slowly but surely we are moving. As you can see from the above pictures, the school finished the foundation. Then, once I had the cash in hand we started building up from there. At the moment, the walls are built up to the window level. I spent about $2,500 on ALL the cement for the project (which we needed to buy now as prices tend to rise pretty rapidly in such commodities) and another $2,100 on iron rods and the roofing sheets. What is happening is that the headmaster comes down to Tamale to meet me, we buy the necessary materials, he sends them up and gets to work, then I come up and check on things when I'm able. I was just up there for Christmas and took the pictures you see above and to the right. At this pace, I hope we can be finished by the end of February! Expect another update in a week or two!

Carl

All the money is IN!

2007-11-02T22:27:00.000Z

Thanks to everyone who donated! Wow...I really had no idea we could fill the request that fast - and there are still some of you out there who want to give! Here's what you can do. Either:
1. Send a check directly to my mother (made out to her)
Kristine Allen
4711 Decatur Ave. N.
New Hope, MN 55428

...and she will gather all the money and transfer it directly to my account in Ghana. All the extra money I get in this way I'll put towards furniture, mattresses, mosquito proofing, and the electrical work for the dorm (none of these things were in my original proposal - I was trying to keep it cheap for expediency's sake)

2. Donate to another project under "GHANA" - I would suggest donating to the "Art Show" project - or any other Peace Corps Partnership Program project in any country.

Ok...I guess the ball is back in my court. Gotta get to work. I'll keep you all posted...

Holy windfall...!

2007-11-01T12:15:00.000Z

So many people responded after my last email - I can't begin to thank you all enough! Something just occurred to me...there might be more of you out there wanting to give even when the amount I requested is filled. If you go to the Peace Corps website and you find my project filled, or no longer there - WAIT! If you donate and I've got all the money I've asked for, Peace Corps will donate it to their "Global Fund." This is all well and good, but I'd rather you wait and let me find another way for your money to get to MY kids in Nakpanduri! More to come soon...

Urgent!!

2007-10-25T12:15:00.000+01:00

Thank you to all who have made donations so far!! I want to remind everyone that my goal is to kick construction of the dorm into high gear just after the New Year and FINISH by March. That means that my PCPP must be FILLED by Christmas time. I don't get to use ANY of the money you all have so generously donated until I get ALL that I've requested. The school and PTA continue to contribute what little money they have and what they get through receipt of the students' fees in the meantime.

For those that wish to donate, it seems to work best if you use the link at the top of this blog rather than going through the Peace Corps website - sometimes parts of it go down or are under construction.

Lastly, I've discovered that Peace Corps does NOT make donors names available to me once they've donated (despite the check-box on the site that makes it seem like I will be alerted of your donation). I would like to send pictures and more personal Thank you's to donors, so if you'd like me to know you've donated, please alert me via email. Otherwise, you're free to remain anonymous and to check the blog for updates. I'm going up to Nakpanduri around Thanksgiving to check up on the progress and then again for Christmas when I'd like to give them the good news that all the money is in!

Let's build a girls dormitory, people!!

Carl

The Project is ONLINE!!

2007-10-09T14:29:00.000+01:00

I just returned from inspecting the project site up in beautiful Nakpanduri - the school, the PTA, and the community have finished the foundation and are waiting for the PCPP funding to arrive. In the meantime, they will collect the year's fees and continue work slowly as they are able. Fortunately, this morning I discovered that Peace Corps Washington has approved my proposal and it is now posted on their website! Go to this link to donate or click on the "Donate Online Now!!" link at the top of the Blog…

Donate Online Now!!!

Once you're there, click "Contribute to this project," scroll down until you find GHANA and this:

Then, enter the amount you'd like to donate, scroll down and click "Continue" and follow the steps to bill your credit or debit card!

For some odd reason, the amount listed as "Needed" is actually less than what I indicated in the proposal I sent. I need about $11,700 to finish the dormitory and I'll take more if I can get it to furnish the place or otherwise make it even better! So, if you come to donate and find it's been filled, rather than donating to the Peace Corps "Global Fund", contact my parents at 763-537-2506 or at bguthrieallen@comcast.net and we'll find a way for you to help!

Project Budget

2007-10-09T13:59:00.000+01:00

Community and PCPP Contribution Breakdown

Project Executive Summary

2007-10-09T13:58:00.001+01:00

The new girls dormitory project at Nakpanduri Business Secondary School (N.A.B.S.S.) Will provide housing for 80 female students. A majority of the school’s female population of 120 girls live outside the immediate area and must find accommodation in town during the school year. Some stay in a make-shift building borrowed from the local presbyterian church while others seek shelter with relatives some distance from the school.

Recently, the Presbyterian Church asked the girls to vacate their premises so it can be transformed into a vocational school. It is therefore necessary for N.A.B.S.S. To build a girls dormitory on the school grounds. A new dormitory at the school would fulfill their urgent need for basic accommodation and would offer them a closer, safer, and more educationally supportive option. N.A.B.S.S., the board of governors, and the pta have each already committed 100% of their available resources to begin this project.

We need YOUR help to fund the rest.

Full Proposal and Background

2007-10-09T13:48:00.000+01:00

Project Summary
More than 80 girls at Nakpanduri Business Secondary School (N.A.B.S.S.) are in need of a dormitory facility on the school grounds. Currently, no such structure exists on campus despite the fact that more than half of the entire student body (both boys and girls) are in need of accommodation during school sessions from year to year. Since the beginning of the 2006-2007 school year, 50 girls hailing from outside Nakpanduri have stayed on mats on the floor of an overcrowded building more than two miles on the opposite side of town from the school. This facility lies in a very isolated and thickly wooded area far from the Nakpanduri town center and has no close neighbors. N.A.B.S.S. borrows the building from the local Presbyterian Church but it will be reclaimed by its owners early next year for conversion into a vocational training school. Another 30+ non-native female students, for whom there’s no room in the dormitory, stay in various parts of town with distant relatives, family friends, or renters who force them to work to earn their keep. Unfamiliar, impoverished, cramped, and often abusive, these environments are not conducive to studying and learning.

Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the school, the Board of Governors and the PTA have made plans and broken ground on the N.A.B.S.S. campus for a new girls’ dormitory. They have molded more than 3,000 cement blocks and laid the foundation using communal labor, in the process buying more than 130 bags of cement and 25 truck loads of building sand, thereby exhausting all their collective resources. The school has also paid a local landowner about $320 for the project site land. (See Background Information below for a detailed synopsis of the school’s land dispute.) In the interim, the Chief of Nakpanduri and Honourable MP Joseph Labik have secured funds and called upon the various communities to come together and build four local grass-roofed mud compounds with four rooms each to house the girls until a permanent facility is completed. Throughout this process, the school has scraped together resources to offer food to those from the community who have volunteered their services, and many of the students themselves (especially the girls) have contributed by fetching buckets of water needed to make the bricks. All remaining labor for the project will be similarly performed by school staff and members of the community. Upon completion of a girls’ dormitory, more than 100 male N.A.B.S.S. students, many staying away from school in similarly borrowed rooms, will move into these mud structures until they too can get their own permanent housing facility.

The Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo District has already contributed, most recently paying about $7,100 (a half payment to settle a dispute that goes back more than five years – see Background Information below) to owners of the school’s land so that development can continue. The district and Honourable MP Joseph Labik have also been able to secure donor funding for the construction of a borehole which would provide a desperately needed source of drinking water at N.A.B.S.S. once the girls move in, and have sunk a large sum on the completion of an unfinished classroom block. Furthermore, the school has for the past five years been connected to the national electrical grid and 10 electrical poles lay in waiting next to the administration block, ready to equip any new structures with power. Despite the valiant efforts of all parties involved, the school needs financial assistance in order to continue work.

N.A.B.S.S., the school’s Board of Governors and the PTA seek PCPP assistance to finish the girls’ dormitory on campus. They duly pledge their full and most concerted commitment to provide all the labor and see the project to a successful completion. The girls of N.A.B.S.S. need a place to stay and they need it quickly. A dormitory on campus with enough space to house all the female students in the currently borrowed facility and those without immediate family in Nakpanduri will fulfill an urgent and desperate need. These students need a safe living and learning space, a place where they’ll be under the close watch of the school and closer to the community, and where they’ll have ready access to the school’s resources (i.e. classrooms, the library, the computer room, and evening educational and entertainment events). The successful construction of a girls’ dormitory on campus will serve as a revitalizing jumpstart to the overall development of N.A.B.S.S., offering the promise of more projects to come and hopeful encouragement to students and to the whole community of Nakpanduri.

Background Information
With the inception of educational reforms establishing the Junior Secondary and the Senior Secondary School System in Ghana, junior secondary school graduates in the Nakpanduri area found difficulties gaining admission to senior secondary schools under stiff regional competition. Many of them were thus compelled to end their schooling. This prompted the then member of parliament Honorable Joseph Y. Labik of the Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo Constituency (now the Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo District Assembly) to negotiate with the minister of education to establish a senior secondary school in Nakpanduri.

The Ghana Education Service established Nakpanduri Business Secondary School (N.A.B.S.S.) in April 1996 with 108 students and 4 teachers on staff in a borrowed school block of the Assemblies of God Junior Secondary School. In January 1997, the school was moved to two renovated grain storage buildings of the former Agriculture Station on the Nakpanduri-Bawku Road. Finally on the eighth of July, 2002, with the student population growing rapidly, the school moved to its current premises southwest of town on the Nakpanduri-Nalerigu Road.

Since moving in 2002, neither the school nor the Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo District has ever possessed title to the land where N.A.B.S.S. rests. A dispute between the land owners and the district has protracted in recent years and efforts to continue building on the mostly undeveloped site have been stymied by owners angry at not having received promised compensation. In one incident, a contractor in the process of building a six-unit classroom block was driven away and has since never returned. Then two years ago, after an apparent agreement by the district to compensate the land owners was broken, the school’s recently leveled football pitch was plowed so the owners could resume farming on the land. Finally, in October 2006 a settlement was reached and the district made a half payment of about $7,100 to the land owners. In addition, one land owner was paid $320 on top of his share of the $7,100 to assure that his particular portion of the land could be used for the construction of a girls’ dormitory without interference (the receipt of this payment is attached to this proposal). The final payment from the district is forthcoming, but will not pose a problem to this hostel project if delayed, because of the aforementioned payment to the land owner.

The school’s current infrastructure includes a three-classroom block, an unfinished six-classroom block (left largely untouched for the last four years due to an intransigent contractor), two staff bungalows, and a small administrative block containing four offices, a staff common room, and a small library and computer room. The school borrows five classrooms from the Assemblies of God Primary and Junior Secondary Schools across the road from the N.A.B.S.S. campus. The school runs two programmes: General Arts and Business. The five mandatory “core subjects” are English Language, Mathematics, Social Studies, Economics, and Integrated Science. In addition to these subjects, students pursuing General Arts take Government, History, Literature, and French Language. Business students balance out their schedule with classes in Financial Accounting, Principles of Costing, and Business Management.

The school has a current population of 390 students (270 boys and 120 girls), more than 200 of whom are not natives of Nakpanduri and would benefit from accommodation on the school grounds. No structures for housing students currently exist at N.A.B.S.S. N.A.B.S.S. is officially designated as a “day school” by the standards of the Ghana Education Service (G.E.S.). This designation implies that students commute to and from school each day and do not stay at the school. In reality, N.A.B.S.S. is a boarding school: most of its students come from outside Nakpanduri and need a place to stay while in school. Achieving official G.E.S. “boarding status” would mean the receipt of generous yearly room and board funding and infrastructure development assistance from the national government. “Day schools” with the necessary facilities can apply to become a “boarding school” if and only if they have the necessary infrastructure to house and feed students.

The girls and boys hostels (dormitories) the school has borrowed for the last several years house more than 100 girls and boys far from the school in wooded areas on the other side of town. As mentioned, 50 girls stay in a building belonging to the Presbyterian Church. Across the road, 50 boys stay in the two run-down buildings which formerly housed N.A.B.S.S.’s only classrooms and before that served as grain storage facilities. It is anticipated that within the next few years, these buildings will also be reclaimed by their owners, creating another housing predicament at N.A.B.S.S.

Statement of Need
As stated in the preceding pages, Nakpanduri Business Secondary School, the N.A.B.S.S. PTA, and 80 girls at N.A.B.S.S. need housing. The hostel in town where some of the girls currently stay is being repossessed by the Nakpanduri Presbyterian Church; furthermore, that facility was far away from school, overcrowded, and unsafe. The area surrounding the current hostel boasts of tse-tse flies, malarial mosquito hot-spots, venomous snakes, and the threat of break-ins – two occurred during the 2006-2007 school year where students lost personal belongings, food stuffs, and money intended for the payment of school fees. Besides the girls residing in the current hostel, N.A.B.S.S. girls living in town are hardly in a good learning environment. The safety needs and educational/holistic benefits of having all the girls together in a well constructed permanent hostel on the N.A.B.S.S. campus plainly justify the need stated in this proposal and currently being addressed in full measure by the school and PTA.

Goals and objectives
The community has identified the following specific goals and objectives in order of priority:

1. Provide a safe living space for 80 female students on the school grounds
· N.A.B.S.S. and the PTA will finish the construction of four four-bedroom mud structures on campus to temporarily house the girls by the end of August, 2007
· N.A.B.S.S. will later use the mud structures to house a group of boy students who will soon find themselves in a similar predicament.

2. Finish the hostel substructure
N.A.B.S.S. and the PTA will utilize the completed plans and all materials purchased – at a cost of $3,982.94 to finish the base structure of the hostel.
· N.A.B.S.S. and the PTA will pay a local mason and carpenter to lead the project work, then use only staff and community labor throughout the project. N.A.B.S.S. and the PTA will incur all labor costs for the project at a value of $3,223.88

3. Finish the hostel superstructure, roofing, and finishing work
· Utilizing PCPP funding of $2,130.60, N.A.B.S.S. and the PTA will purchase remaining materials and complete the carpentry and masonry work on the superstructure of the hostel.
· N.A.B.S.S. and the PTA will purchase roofing lumber, aluminum sheets, and nails using $4,447.76 of PCPP funds to roof the hostel.
· Utilizing PCPP funding of $5,059.49, N.A.B.S.S. and the PTA will purchase remaining materials and complete the walls, floors, security bars and other finishing work on the hostel.

Method
Work is already underway on the substructure of the girls’ dormitory (see figures 5.5 and 6.5 below). All materials have been purchased and that work will be completed by the end of September – well before the time this volunteer returns to Nakpanduri. The Chairman of the PTA, Mr. Mahama M. Emmanuel, along with his treasurer and the N.A.B.S.S. staff have pledged to see this stage of the project to completion (see attached assurance letter). In the meantime, the girls will be safely housed in the temporary mud structures at the school.

Once PCPP funding is acquired – hopefully by December 2007, PCVL Carl Allen will be in charge of dispensing the funds and monitoring the work from his new station in Tamale. Those running the project in Nakpanduri will be in constant contact with Carl and will come to Tamale where Carl will accompany them to dispense funds for all purchases – most of which will be made in Tamale. Each project phase is estimated to take no more than one month beginning from January 2008, which means the project should be completed by the end of March 2008.

Monitoring and Evaluation
PCVL Carl Allen will make periodic trips to Nakpanduri throughout the duration of the project to ensure work is moving along and to help troubleshoot any unforeseen difficulties. He will also remain in weekly communication with the school and PTA via mobile phone. Peace Corps and all donor parties will be kept abreast of the project status throughout. On each of his trips, Carl will take photographs of the project site to show Peace Corps and all donors.

During the finishing stages and once the dormitory is completed, PCVL Carl Allen will actively engage with the school, the PTA, and especially the girls themselves to make sure the facility meets their needs. Success in this endeavour will be measured by the satisfaction of the girls living in the hostel and that of the whole school and Nakpanduri community. Their improved living conditions, safety, morale, and – hopefully – academic performance will be testament to a truly met need.