As she attained the school going age her parents were wondering how they could send her to school at the next community-Tabier and Lawra just as  her elder siblings did. She knew she was going to stay at her village, probably betrothed to a man at her tender age, undergoing the agony associated with marriage in a man dominated cultural society, where a marriage woman was considered as a property of her husband and not a lifelong development partner.

Maybe another option for her, she says would have been escaping from her village and migrating to the south in an attempt to break out of the shackles of poverty. She would have eventually become a “wage slave”, smarting under heavy loads to get few coins to hold brief for herself on daily basis.

Perhaps, she could have also suffered from the knock downs by cars and some health risks, especially rape and sexually transmitted diseases, as some of her colleagues are faced with in the cities.

A number of her colleagues, suffered similar difficulties and are unable to attend school to unearth their talents, while many more children, especially girls in the communities dropped out of schools not only in the Lawra District but the entire region because of some of the challenges Miss Issah mentioned.

However luck fell on the way of young and pretty Barikisu, at the time she could start her schooling, the Bagri Baptist School was built through the support of a United Kingdom Faith Based Charity, the Savannah Education Trust (SET).

The establishment of the school helped her parents and herself immensely.  Her parents did not have to buy a bicycle for her to enable her attend primary school at Tabier and Junior High School in the District capital. Walking a far distance to school became a thing of the past.

Miss Issah has successfully completed Junior High School this year and has gained admission to the Lawra Senior High School to read General Arts. Sharing her experience with the Ghana News Agency, she said but for the Savannah Education Trust, her entire life would have been jeopardised and the future bleak and meaningless for her.

No wonder the name SET has become a corporate and a household word in the lips of people in the District, as a worthy development partner whose educational interventions have helped improved the lots of children in deprived communities who otherwise would have been denied education largely due to the lack of access and poverty.

SET has taken up the challenge as a stakeholder in education development in the district and its contribution to education is huge and beneficial to the people. In recognition of the good works that SET has done in the past 10 years and continues to do, the Lawra-Naa, Naa Puowelle Karbo and Elders enskinned Mr Howard Hickman, a Trustee of SET as Maalu Naa (Development Chief) of the traditional area at a durbar of chiefs and people at this year’s Kobina Festival.

Conferring the Maalu-Naa tittle on Naa Hickman, the Chief described SET as a worthy development partner and a lifeline of the children’s education in the District, considering the huge investment made in education, the remarkable achievement of the Trust to making education available and accessible to children in deprived communities.

“It is therefore our prerogative as Chiefs and Elders to confer the higher tittle Maalu-Naa to Naa Hickman, the first of its kind given to anybody in the traditional area”, he said. The enskinment was to remember the good works of SET and other past heroes who contributed more in various ways towards the betterment of the people.  

Naa Karbo said the provision of 10 fully functional schools, was one of the best help a development partner could provide for deprived people like ours to bring education to the many youth who would have been social misfits in society. The issue of financing education cannot be carried out by central government alone with increase in population and high demand for quality education.

Naa Karbo said if all civil society organisations and non-government organisations were like SET, a positive change would have been made this time round in our educational efforts and the impact would have been enormous. “Development is education, physical development is the last tail end of development,” Naa Karbo said, adding, the impact made was great and commendable.

Naa Karbo said the traditional area was basically an agricultural based economy and it has been confronted with development challenges, and issues of environmental degradation, poverty and unemployment among the youth, resulting in massive migration to the cities to look for jobs.

He therefore appealed to the newly enskinned Naa Hickman to focus his attention to solve those challenges to improve on the livelihoods of the people. Naa Karbo congratulated Naa Hickman on his conferment and looked forward to strengthening the already excellence relations that exist between the Traditional Area and SET.  Maalu-Naa Hickman thanked Naa Karbo and the paramouncy and people of the District, saying: “I am now a member of the Lawra people and I will focus more to improving lives and conditions in the area.”

Naa Hickman assured the people of his personal support in all endeavours in the future.

Mrs Theresa Ninnang Song-Aabo, District Director of Education enumerating the achievements of SET, said the charity supports education both in cash and in kind, to ensure access and participation, provision of quality education, support to girl child education and education management. SET does this through the provision of infrastructure, teacher professional development, sponsoring of teacher trainees, carrying out in-service training for teachers, provision of assorted teaching and learning materials and provision of school uniforms among others.

The Education Director said SET established the Baptist Education Unit in the District and provided educational infrastructure to open schools at Bagri Baptist, Gbier Baptist, Pavuu Baptist, Koh Baptist and Mettoh and Tolibri Baptist Schools. All these schools have been provided with decent school blocks which include classrooms, teachers’ offices, and multi-purpose halls, well equipped with furniture, kitchens urinals and toilets.

These schools have helped to provide access and participation in education to children in these communities who would otherwise not have been enrolled and retained in school. Mrs Song-Aabo, said the total enrolment in the Kindergarten stood at 306 pupils and in the primary 773 pupils and junior high school, 113, giving a grand total enrolment of 1,192 pupils.

She said SET introduced an e-reading pilot-project at Pavuu Baptist Primary School in 2015. Pupils in the school have been provided with electronic tablets, which contain all textbooks and syllabuses to facilitate reading in the school and at home.  It has also delivered assorted teaching and learning materials such as textbooks and exercise books to schools to facilitate the teaching and learning processes while it provided boreholes for potable water and mid-day meals for the pupils.

Mrs Song-Aabo, said those make the teachers and pupils comfortable to carry out teaching and learning. The District Directorate of Education received GH? 7,000 from the charity to organise the 2015 Best Teacher and workers award ceremony, which served as motivation for the teachers while  supported the 2015 and 2016

“My First Day at School activities with cash and fuel.  The cash was used to purchase assorted candies for the pupils. These gestures enable the Directorate to welcome new pupils to school, which would help these new arrivals to be happy and stay to complete school. SET also donated a desktop printer to the Directorate to help enhanced office work and the gesture had impacted positively on education delivery.

Madam Patricia Ayiko,  Regional Director of Education said the Lawra Naa had chosen a good path to tread on, once he was able to honour individuals and organisations that were working to develop the traditional area.

Those recognised and honoured would be enthused and motivated to work even harder than before and produce better results. Madam Ayiko said nothing was rewarding than providing quality education to individuals in the communities and advised parents to consider the education of children as a collective responsibility, which should be the concern of stakeholders.

Parents, guardians and all other stakeholders should not leave the education of children in the hands of teachers alone and turn to blame them at the end when results at the BECE and WASSCE are poor. Parents and guardians should visit the schools of their wards from time to time to interact with the teachers and see how their wards are faring, that is to know of their challenges and see what remedies could be provided towards to finding solutions to challenges affecting education.

Madam Ayiko appealed to other traditional rulers in the Region to recognise the work of teachers and other workers in the education industry to motivate them to improve their output and to improve the performance of the pupils and students in the schools. She urged parents and guardians to send their girl- children to school and keep them in school till they complete, while appealing to the chiefs and queen mothers to stop all cultural practices that hindered the education of the girl- child in their traditional areas.

Mr Charles T. Karbo, Country Director of SET said, the organisation subsidised the cost of school uniforms for the pupils and this enabled poor parents who would otherwise not be able to buy uniforms and enrol their wards in school. He said it was only good that government shared the cost of education with stakeholders to enhance quality education.