Ghana School Aid held its 40th AGM on 17 September 2026, with 29 people attending in person at St Mary’s Islington in London, and a further 10 online, enabling participation from many places including members of the executive committee in Ghana.
Following reflections on the life of our long-standing Secretary Jo Hallett who passed away recently, reports on our finances, fundraising and current projects were presented, showing an encouraging though changing picture of how GSA remains very much ‘in business’ with locally recognised contributions.
We heard presentations from Action Through Enterprise in the Upper West Region of Ghana about their expanding ‘Books for All’ project reaching many more schools beyond the resources centres in Lawra and Nandom, continuing progress on facilities at Joe Bedu School in Daffor Awudome / Volta region from Ben Beke who leads much of this work locally, and how fundraising under Ghana School Aid’s umbrella has enabled a small school in Offinso / Ashanti to build new classrooms but also spark exchanges with a UK school on teaching methods.
The AGM concluded with a forward looking discussion about how to support schools and their students over longer cycles and in holistic ways to demonstrate how supporting schools with sometimes the most basic infrastructure can be life changing for individuals and open up opportunities for whole generations of young people in some of the most deprived areas of the country.
Gundu Kaa Munya District Assembly (D/A) Primary School serves 3 settlements (Gundu, Kaa and Munya) in the northeast of the Northern Region. Located in the Tolon District, some 70 km north east of Tamale this is a very remote location, with only poor roads leading to it. The school with 300+ children, about half of them girls, finds it very hard to attract and retain teaching staff as most teachers do not currently live in the communities for lack of accommodation and have to travel long hours to the school, and back home.
Ghana School Aid funded new teachers’ quarters, built by the community, to help teachers stay in the village at least during the working week and attend their workplace regularly.
Work took place during the rainy season in order for there to be enough water for the construction and brick making, using local materials.
The new quarters, designed with natural ventilation in mind to help cope with the very hot climate, have now been completed. Our contribution of £2,400 made all the difference. Ghana School Aid covered building materials, carpenters’, electricians’ and painting bills, while the community built the footings, the walls and rendered them!
A next step will be the construction of a new classroom block and ensuring appropriate and good standard sanitary facilities for girls and boys, as the population of young people across Ghana but also in this place is growing fast.
We are fundraising for Gundu Kaa Munya’s future development and are hoping to raise up to £5,000 for this project. To donate please go to our 40th anniversary appeal fundraising site at Give As You Live https://donate.giveasyoulive.com/campaign/gsa-40th-anniversary-appeal, and don’t forget to Gift Aid your donations. This can be done on the Give As You Live donations page, or a form can be found at the bottom of our fundraising page: https://ghanaschoolaid.org/fundraising/.
Our 2026 – 40th anniversary newsletter is out ! – Read about our impact and current projects, with voices from school children, teachers, parents and community members, and reflections from our representatives in Ghana Alhassan Salifu Baako (Tamale / North of Ghana) and Kofi Ohene (Accra / South of Ghana).
Please let us know if you would like to join us – just send an email to our organiser Penny Sewell at pennymsewell@gmail.com.
The Committee will report on projects, finances, forthcoming events in Ghana and plans for the future. As usual there will also be a delicious Ghanaian lunch and the opportunity to meet and chat about shared interests and how to promote our cause.
We celebrated our anniversary in style at the House of Lords on the 11th of June by kind invitation of of our patron Lord Paul Boateng of Akyem and of Wembley.
Many guests joined us including from the Ghana High Commission and the Open University Education Department.
Very special guests were also our Trustee and Local Representative in Ghana Mr Kofi Ohene and his wife Floria, former Overseas Development Aid Minister and GSA Patron Baroness Chalker, and Ms Bell Ribeiro Addy MP, Chair of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group for Ghana.
At the event we explored in particular the need to future proof schools in Ghana in face of climate change including rising day temperatures, rainfall and flooding, the demands placed on Ghana’s education sector with a growing and increasingly young population, as well as the need of dedicated funding for good quality hygiene and washroom facilities to encourage girls to go to school and stay in education. Every added year in education for girls increases childhood immunisation rates, reduces infant mortality, increases a women’s earnings later in life and builds confidence in girls to chart their own course in life.
In the autumn Ghana School Aid will also celebrate the anniversary in Ghana with events in the Volta Region and the Northern Region to bring communities, schools and pupils together and plan for the future!
Michael Hammer has taken over from Jo Hallett as Honorary Secretary. Jo Hallet has served 15 years in this role and Ghana School Aid thanks her deeply for her untiring work for young people and schools in Ghana through our charity.
Our project at Adaklu Kodzobi D/A Basic School for a reading room, computer laboratory and attached toilet facilities in memory of one of our co-founders, Eric Earle, is proceeding well, though heavy rain has led to some delay. The formal opening is scheduled for autumn 2026.
We also supported Zugu D/A Primary, Kasuliyili E/A Primary and Sabegu D/A Junior High School, metal desks have been constructed, delivered and are in service. Everyone lent a hand to get the desks moved to the schools and we thank our representative, Salifu Baaku, for his supervision of progress and also handing over the desks over to the schools at the end of October.
We will review requests for grants that we have received at our next committee meetings in quarter 1 and quarter 2 of 2026.
Ghana School Aid will celebrate its fortieth birthday in 2026, and planning for celebrations both in the UK and in Ghana is under way.
We held our 2025 AGM in the crypt of St Mary’s church, Islington, yesterday, attended by some 22 delegates, with more on zoom. It was a very pleasant occasion, with encouraging reports on progress made with projects in Ghana, ours, those of Wulugu and in particular, ATE (Action through Enterprise) and their wonderful work in the North West Region of Ghana.
A new secretary will soon be taking over from Jo Hallett and we may welcome some new committee members, otherwise, all committee members were reappointed. I will soon post the accounts from 2024-25. You can now access, on our Newsletter page, the 2025 Ghana School Aid NEWSLETTER. It was produced this year by Kate Regan, and all agree that it is outstanding, a real pleasure to read.
Sixty-five years after the Chief Education Officer in the Volta Region, Eric Earle, returned to his country, the United Kingdom, after a decade’s tour of duty in Ghana, a modern literacy, ICT centre and science laboratory is being constructed at Adaklu-Kodzobi, near Ho, in his memory. More information..
At our committee meeting we were able to approve grants for the following four schools:
Jachie Special Needs Technical Institute (for desks) ~~ Sabegu JHS (for teachers’ tables and chairs, and cupboards) ~~ Kasuliyili KG and Primary Schools (for furniture) ~~ Zugudiye Primary School (also for furniture)
