Donation protected
On January 6th, 2021 five children ages 8-14 from the village, Aveme in Ghana, knocked on my door asking me to teach them English.
We studied the English alphabet and then walked around, picked mangoes while working on phonetics. A woman along the road saw me teaching the children and asked how much my English classes were. I told her they were free and she sent her 5 kids with me to my house. To my surprise a 5 person class became a 10 person class that lasted 3 hours. The next afternoon, word spread fast and there were 14 children in front of my house ready to learn. I did one more day of free classes the day after but only 8 or 9 came. Many were hungry and can't go consecutive days off working. Some from the previous day saw me in the street and asked me to teach again. I told one of the young leaders in the village, Olonka, about the classes while he was locking my hair at his local barber shop. He asked me to continue offering free English classes for children the last week I was scheduled to be in Ghana, seeing the value and need of it in Aveme. Ghana schools were not in session because of COVID up until January 19th, 2021. The children went almost a whole year without any education. Even with schools running now, education isn't free. Many can't afford to go or are too young to attend the actual schools that are open. Primary schools are still closed (Schools only open for High school and Jr. high school), so many small children are still going days without learning
So, we put out a call for 700 dollars, to fund an unimaginable future for Aveme. A week long free English school that fed the children when they came. I hooked up with Olonka and his wife Mawusi (who owns a food stand in Aveme), they both closed down their businesses and we started buying classroom materials, sandals, backpacks and food for a week of school on my personal bank account to provide these children with something to do.
We started with an orientation where we asked all who showed up what they wanted out of the school. The kids going to government school wanted a chance to come after their school was done and the other ones wanted it to be early enough that they can still make money in the afternoons.
We created day and night school right there on the spot, set times and showed up for them on Monday morning. We met in Aveme public shanti and taught Ewé and English side by side. Word had spread even faster than before and what we thought would be a week long class ended up unearthing the education crisis in Ghana. Hundreds of children showed up, to the point that we had to turn people away the second day of school. We ran out of materials, Aveme's youth were excited to finally get a chance to get an education. So many cannot afford government school so having a free school in the village (that feds them) felt like an answered prayer.
The school is an ever evolving learning chamber. We have been sowing a decolonized model for the future of Education for Indigenous Youth in Aveme. This whole experience, including the name of the school, Future School, is all being determined by the Ewè community. Indigenous children worldwide are shipped out of their villages when receiving education in the colonial order of the world. This is a means of controlling the transfer of knowledge between tribes and a way we perpetuate and instill devaluing of local endogenous knowledge systems. Endogenous knowledge systems have solutions to many of our global, ecological issues. We felt a greater call after the first 3 days to take this moment to really create a future that no one, including ourselves, has ever seen.
Currently we are on a mission to build a self-sustaining indigenous institution that exists for the village, for the village, by the village.
Many adults have asked me to offer classes for them as they never got a chance to go to school. We have been planning ways to schedule that in, but right now our focus is on the youth.
Our school provides students with English taught from the Black American historical lens (which also includes pictorial English #ALNUGE as created by Cleaster Cotton) and Ewè. Ewè is an oral language and its literary culture is very undeveloped. Not many here in Aveme can even tell you about its alphabet, there are not many who can write it and very little is written in Ewè. We are teaching them how to write and read Ewè with additional local history lessons about the Aveme itself from tribe members.
We feed the children after every class, this is very important to our operation. What holds many African villager youth behind in acquiring a government education is that they can't afford it because food is an immediate need. Aveme is a place that suffered from hunger during the 2010s and it is still recovering economically and psychologically. Children should not have to determine between whether they will eat food or get education.
The money you send will help us sustain the evolution of the school by
1. Paying the local staff who work with us
2. Buy materials for classes
3. Feed the children 5 days a week after school.
4. Help us actually build a schoolhouse in Aveme.
5. Help us get technology set up so that indigenous children may get exposure and a chance to determine how they will interact with the ever developing world of technology
We are also looking for technology donations as the kids have shown a strong curiosity and passion for the internet and exposure to technology in general.
Indigenous children have called me out to advocate for them. These children want a chance to be involved in tomorrow, without the colonization and erasure of their ancient culture.
By supporting our school, you are supporting an endogenous African Future that will make a lasting impact on the village of Aveme and its people (past, present, Future).
Thank you for your donations. Every little thing helps us help them.
- Khonsu Ra
[email redacted]
Zelle: (913) [phone redacted]
Whatsapp: +233 55 [phone redacted]
We studied the English alphabet and then walked around, picked mangoes while working on phonetics. A woman along the road saw me teaching the children and asked how much my English classes were. I told her they were free and she sent her 5 kids with me to my house. To my surprise a 5 person class became a 10 person class that lasted 3 hours. The next afternoon, word spread fast and there were 14 children in front of my house ready to learn. I did one more day of free classes the day after but only 8 or 9 came. Many were hungry and can't go consecutive days off working. Some from the previous day saw me in the street and asked me to teach again. I told one of the young leaders in the village, Olonka, about the classes while he was locking my hair at his local barber shop. He asked me to continue offering free English classes for children the last week I was scheduled to be in Ghana, seeing the value and need of it in Aveme. Ghana schools were not in session because of COVID up until January 19th, 2021. The children went almost a whole year without any education. Even with schools running now, education isn't free. Many can't afford to go or are too young to attend the actual schools that are open. Primary schools are still closed (Schools only open for High school and Jr. high school), so many small children are still going days without learning
So, we put out a call for 700 dollars, to fund an unimaginable future for Aveme. A week long free English school that fed the children when they came. I hooked up with Olonka and his wife Mawusi (who owns a food stand in Aveme), they both closed down their businesses and we started buying classroom materials, sandals, backpacks and food for a week of school on my personal bank account to provide these children with something to do.
We started with an orientation where we asked all who showed up what they wanted out of the school. The kids going to government school wanted a chance to come after their school was done and the other ones wanted it to be early enough that they can still make money in the afternoons.
We created day and night school right there on the spot, set times and showed up for them on Monday morning. We met in Aveme public shanti and taught Ewé and English side by side. Word had spread even faster than before and what we thought would be a week long class ended up unearthing the education crisis in Ghana. Hundreds of children showed up, to the point that we had to turn people away the second day of school. We ran out of materials, Aveme's youth were excited to finally get a chance to get an education. So many cannot afford government school so having a free school in the village (that feds them) felt like an answered prayer.
The school is an ever evolving learning chamber. We have been sowing a decolonized model for the future of Education for Indigenous Youth in Aveme. This whole experience, including the name of the school, Future School, is all being determined by the Ewè community. Indigenous children worldwide are shipped out of their villages when receiving education in the colonial order of the world. This is a means of controlling the transfer of knowledge between tribes and a way we perpetuate and instill devaluing of local endogenous knowledge systems. Endogenous knowledge systems have solutions to many of our global, ecological issues. We felt a greater call after the first 3 days to take this moment to really create a future that no one, including ourselves, has ever seen.
Currently we are on a mission to build a self-sustaining indigenous institution that exists for the village, for the village, by the village.
Many adults have asked me to offer classes for them as they never got a chance to go to school. We have been planning ways to schedule that in, but right now our focus is on the youth.
Our school provides students with English taught from the Black American historical lens (which also includes pictorial English #ALNUGE as created by Cleaster Cotton) and Ewè. Ewè is an oral language and its literary culture is very undeveloped. Not many here in Aveme can even tell you about its alphabet, there are not many who can write it and very little is written in Ewè. We are teaching them how to write and read Ewè with additional local history lessons about the Aveme itself from tribe members.
We feed the children after every class, this is very important to our operation. What holds many African villager youth behind in acquiring a government education is that they can't afford it because food is an immediate need. Aveme is a place that suffered from hunger during the 2010s and it is still recovering economically and psychologically. Children should not have to determine between whether they will eat food or get education.
The money you send will help us sustain the evolution of the school by
1. Paying the local staff who work with us
2. Buy materials for classes
3. Feed the children 5 days a week after school.
4. Help us actually build a schoolhouse in Aveme.
5. Help us get technology set up so that indigenous children may get exposure and a chance to determine how they will interact with the ever developing world of technology
We are also looking for technology donations as the kids have shown a strong curiosity and passion for the internet and exposure to technology in general.
Indigenous children have called me out to advocate for them. These children want a chance to be involved in tomorrow, without the colonization and erasure of their ancient culture.
By supporting our school, you are supporting an endogenous African Future that will make a lasting impact on the village of Aveme and its people (past, present, Future).
Thank you for your donations. Every little thing helps us help them.
- Khonsu Ra
[email redacted]
Zelle: (913) [phone redacted]
Whatsapp: +233 55 [phone redacted]
Organizer
Christina Ruiz
Organizer
Black Mountain, NC