Discover the REAL reason this British lady moved to Ghana for change!

[Music] my wife and I used to do base for another organization that were into building libraries and uh through that project we learned a lot of the kids didn't know how to read so we decided to set up free literacy classes where we will guide the students to learn the basic uh on reading and that's how pen paper Ghana started my name is Richard Manu I'm a co-founder to penter Ghana um we are three actually that started the organization my wife who is a British citizen uh Katy J Emerson and Emma pegler uh Emma is based in the UK my wife and I are living in Ghana currently my name is ky Emerson first I came to do some initial volunteering with another organization um in 2014 it's about nearly 10 years ago we were building uh School libraries and um some homes for um people up in the north of Garner as well so I came for about 3 weeks with a friend to do some volunteering and then loved it and uh wanted to continue doing some charity work out here and then um Richard was working for the that organization at the time and um we stayed in contact as friends and then I decided to come back out to see what kind of work I could do here voluntarily and um and then we ended up having a relationship and and um and then I moved out here in August 2015 when I we building libraries in uncompleted school buildings we realized that it was like great giving the books to kids but if they can't read the story what's the point in a way they can just look at the picture teachers but they can't read and we actually realized that there's actually a big need for teaching how to read properly um so we started just initially as a kind of hobby uh little project um working in one school with 14 teenage girls um and it just grew suddenly within like two weeks the teachers were like oh can we have another four pupils come in can we have this and suddenly by the end of that term we had taught about 30 to 40 kids how to read teenagers so they were like 13 14 year olds who some of them didn't even know the alphabet but they were in school every day every organization when they starting have this ups and down um for us it was mainly trying to Branch out from where we were and starting it by ourself because we used to work for this organization and do this as on our free time but doing it on our own we had to register the organization uh uh which took us a long time to come up with the Constitution and going into social welfare uh regist General and all that but I mean since it was a passion it was it was fun doing it anyway our main focus is on reading and this is um where we go to a government school and we run a basis uh assessment on junior high students and then we select those that are very low in reading and then we run a free literacy class for um usually we spend like a school time in one school and the students should be able to read simple sentences uh at pen paper Ghana We Believe reading is the heart of Education if the kids gets to know how to read they can even study for themselves the schools generally they hear about us from another school teacher or head teacher or maybe one of the students has moved to that school and they're like oh this kid knows how to read well and where did they learn this and so um we're actually getting calls all the time both from government schools and private schools you know I had one this morning from a a private school in Acra and they're saying please like we have issues with reading can you come so we have the there's the need there but there's only two of us and you know um but what we do is we work with the Ghana Education Service so um they we generally say what school is needed needs to help the most and they provide like a list or a district that we should work in so um we feel like we want them to give us the the places that need it the most and we will go there than to Pap Ghana has really helped us in terms of reading because our first um when I came here I saw that the reading ability of the children was very low so I just contacted them they came in and for now majority of the student who could not read at that time is now reading and it has really helped us a lot I'm head teacher ofi DC school at my former school we had workshop with them and they came and taught us something on Phonics so it was then that I saw that the way they were teaching the fex and the way they were teaching blending other things was very good so I thought it's wice to contact them for them to come and help their school and thankfully they came in and I've even gotten more than what I was expecting from them so they've really helped us a lot my name is Sam H I attend school at basic school I am in basic eight fness has improved my vocabul than to G has given me the opportunity to read a lot of book thank you my name ISU Asam I am in basic 8 I attend school at B basic pen to paper Ghana has improved my reading skills and it have given me opportunity to read a lot of stories since we don't have library books in our school it's very very rewarding obviously not MoneyWise but just in the sense that you see a you actually see a child transformed from somebody who is very withdrawn very quiet probably sits at the back of the class never speaks um to somebody who is engaged in the class they they start to have friends they start to smile and um I remember one story where a teacher said to me oh um I gave a a student a hug today and I was like she's like guess which student and I um I guess right but it was because she for the first time she got up and attempted to read something off the board and the teacher said wow she's got beautiful smile and teeth and she had never seen her talk before you know so it's those kind of things that make a difference and um we're not you know we're working with teenagers who they're not going to be the next doctor or the you know because they their abilities and other subjects are not high as well but they'll be able to fill in a form to apply for a job they'll be able to understand the medic medical things that for their child when in the future they'll be able to teach their children how to read and it will become a cycle that you know the future Generations it will get to the point where we won't even be needed we do Bas like infrastructure health and all that so uh infrastructure wise we only do uh jump into that section when we have the funds available and we do Health talks these ones are organized twice a year in the schools where we teach like menstral cycles and menstrual hygiene uh sanitation and all that in in the government [Music] schools apart from the assistance that we are getting from pen to paper we are also having a lot of challenges in terms of infrastructure in fact um classes like class 5 and six are using a single classroom that has been divided classes like ghs 1 and two are using a single structure that has been divided and this makes teaching and learning very difficult especially when two teachers are teaching at the same time it gets very difficult so times we've also started something that was an initiative from the community and the school itself and we've gotten to a level that needs major attention and assistance and what we are requesting from people watching us is that they they should come in and help us at least on how we can go to the roofing level how we can move the kit from that place to the new one so that we can even admit more students and Pen paper GH can also come in and give us more assistance in terms of reading and I can assure you that when we are able to do this in some few years time you come and meet something different here there are some challenges that the school has already that ideally we would like to get some help for uh this is one of it like the classroom situations so we can go through and I'll show you around so this this is class this is DHS 2 dhs2 and then just behind this board we have ghs one ghs one so it's basically one classroom that has been divided for the two uh classes and you can tell the noise we basically battle with noise you have to be louder so your kids can uh can hear you let let's show you the [Music] around so as as you can see we literally walked from uh form two to form three we just that board being uh what split the classrooms our mobile Library um the way we started it was because you know with the previous organization we were building libraries for the schools and some of these schools would not use the facility they will not use the books uh either by the reason that they can't read it or it's just that we don't have a Liberian who will sort of arrang the books and make sure that it goes in and out so we thought well if we have it and we are going to the schools already we can take it with us take boxes with us the kids can assess it we can manage it and take it back and we stock it by you know friends and family sending over boxes of books from abroad and also we got uh a large sum from also books abroad with an organization in the UK as well ideally they can help in many ways uh starting from the uh Library you can send books over to Ghana you know you can do uh door to- door service and they they'll bring it to us um you can also sponsor the running of the library we have a budget going to the schools each month so we have a budget for the mobile Library they can also help by funding a project in a school whether it's water or whether it's a a classroom they can uh find a whole classroom and we'll be glad to put their name on it you know so so and so block uh by the person that founded them um and also they can also volunteer by visiting us um and going to the schools seeing what we do there and they can go back and be ambassadors for the organization raise funds of projects and whatever yeah you can set up a a monthly donation or a one-off donation through the website um and also since it's just me and Richard um anyone can contact us by email by social media Instagram and it will be one of us the replies so um they can have a personal message and you know if someone says I really want to donate this amount but it needs to go for this then that's Al totally fine [Music]