Community Service

    One of the aspects of the NYU in Ghana program that I like the most is that community service and volunteer work are really encouraged by the staff, and they will go to great lengths to get us involved in working with the community in a way that interests us. I had been volunteering at GHANET, which is the Ghana HIV/Aids network because I have an interest in going into public health. However, this project did not end up working out so I found myself more than halfway through the semester with no community work to do. Thankfully, all of the people that I am studying here with are really excited about bringing along other people to their volunteer sites, so I am planning on joining my friends at different sites around Accra for my remaining weeks here.

         I have Fridays completely free so I decided to join my roommate in going to the State School for the Deaf, Accra. She is able to communicate pretty well in American Sign Language so she found one of the only schools that are catered towards deaf children in the country. We woke up at 6:30am and walked about 20 minutes to the Labone Station where the school bus picked us up. Children travel from all over the greater Accra region to go to this school so the bus was packed. Although it was probably meant to accommodate 20 children, there were easily 40. There were kids standing in the aisles and sitting on each others laps, but it was amazing that there was no fighting over seats and there seemed to be an air of excitement about going to school. The children range from pre-K to high school and I had the chance to have a conversation with a 17-year old girl on the hour bus ride (we communicated through writing). We finally arrived at the school after about an hour and Miranda and I were greeted warmly from all of the children there. About 15 of them immediately ran over looking for hugs from Miranda and introductions from me.

         We spend the most part of the morning in the pre-K class which has children from 4-12 years old, but they are all pretty much at the same academic level. Few of them know many signs, so we were working on the alphabet and making the connection between what the letter looks like and its sign. We brought construction paper and markers so that we could draw the letters, and the children were absolutely mesmerized my all of this. Most of these kids had never even seen markers or construction paper because the only resource available to them in the classroom in one chalkboard and chalk, so they were occupied by the art supplies for a few hours. Around noon they had recess, which consisted of playing in the dirt yard that had 4 swings (3 of which were broken) and some spinning metal contraption that has been outlawed on American playgrounds for decades. The whole time Miranda and I were grimacing in fear that one of the kids was going to break an arm. At 1:00pm we had to leave in order to get back to NYU in time for class, and all of the children came to the gate to wave goodbye!

         I am really glad that I had the chance to see a Ghanaian school and understand how the education system here works. One thing that was particularly upsetting for me was that the teachers use physical punishment on the children. Some of this might be because it was a school for deaf children and words lose their effectiveness, but I have heard from others that the teachers at the average public school hit the children. The physical force used by the teachers encourages the children to hit one another, which is also very common. The children get in trouble, however, when they hit one another so I think they are confused. The teachers are setting a really poor example and the physical force or punishment never really solves anything, only tears. One of the other really obvious problems is the complete lack of resources available for the teachers. There is one chalkboard in the classroom, no paper or pencils, no calculators for the older children and very few books. These resources are even more important in a school that caters to children with special needs, but the funds simply are not there. The best we can do for now is to continue to go into school and bring our ideas and markers