WHO WE ARE!
UPDATE!
With your help, we now have a bore hole for the school! As soon as the first £1,000 was released, we started drilling for water. We had already identified the best place for the drilling for water for the school, and went over 400ft deep into the mountain where the school is located: at Okai Kwei Hill, Pokuase. Drilling went well, and we struck water quickly.
We are grateful to all those friends and supporters who donated to the borehole project and want you to know that this would not have been possible without your help.
Please see the short video update below!
The Spelmore Institute is a small, holistic vegetarian school in the outskirts of Accra, Ghana and we need your support with:
*a STEM lab, *two school buses, and (we now have *access to clean water!)
- The school serves the local community with the bold Vision: ‘To inspire future leaders through holistic education that champions global enterprise and innovation.’
- We currently offer scholarships or bursaries to 75% of our students.
- We are a Charity registered in Ghana, and licensed by the National Schools Inspectorate Authority(NASIA) Ghana. We have an experienced and professional Management Board and the school is run efficiently and transparently.
Ghana is a predominantly meat-eating society, and a vegetarian school diet is still seen with suspicion, but we are determined to continue as humble warriors and promote our fight against global climate change, which impacts Africa disastrously due to underdevelopment, and will not compromise our plant-based lunch offering.
HOW WE STARTED!
- We originally started as a small group of homeschooling parents- educating our children in our home and sharing resources with other families. We prepared their plant-based vegetarian lunches with love and some organic herbs and spices from our garden.
- With encouragement and support from family and friends we erected a simple school structure, and still prepare the same healthy and natural vegetarian lunches for our students.
- As former homeschoolers, we enrich the curriculum for our students with extracurricular classes and activities to promote cultural awareness and personal self-confidence, such as African History, Cultural Camps, Financial Literacy and Entrepreneurship, Drama, Self Defense Martial Arts, Chess and many more.
- The current school opened in September 2019 but closed for two years due to the Global Pandemic. We reopened in 2021 but the closure affected our growth and severely damaged school finances.
- As well as reducing our climate impact, we also promote a respect for nature and the wellbeing of our school community and are working to reintroduce farming, Qigong and Mindfulness practice.
WHAT WE NEED!
1. We now need to develop a STEM space, in line with our vision and ethos, where our students can learn to play with technology and natural elements, and experience the joys of creating. With appropriate technology we will be able to bring the amazing world closer to them.
We already have a small structure for our STEM Makers’ Hub, and now need the equipment to bring our students’ ideas to life. We want them to experience ‘hands on’, practical science and technology classes, as ‘by doing’ they will better understand concepts and be able to apply them to the world they live in.
2. Next we need two school buses. We are located on a hill, in a semi-rural area, and our roads are generally in poor conditionas there is no guttering or tarmac. The roads become nearly impassable during the rainy season due to erosion which leaves craters and valleys in the middle of the roads. At times, it is very difficult for our students to reach school as their parents either do not drive or are not able to navigate the rough roads in their vehicles.
School buses would collect students from vantage points close to their homes, and reassure parents that their children would both arrive at, and return from, school safely. This is a particular concern for our female students, who often walk with their younger siblings to school and are vulnerable to negative elements in the society.
3. Finally, the school needed access to its own water supply! With your help we drilled a borehole so that the school could have free and uninterrupted access to safe water. There is no piped water in our area, and the school has been buying water from a supplier and storing it in an overhead tank. With a growing student population, and with increased hikes in the cost of living, the expense of providing safe water for the washrooms, the kitchen facilities, cleaning and sanitation was becoming an unsustainable burden on the school’s resources.
The new borehole will save the school £££s every month, and this money can be allocated to further learning materials or activities for our students. A borehole gives a life-time supply of clean water, which can safeguard the health and wellbeing of our students, and help us to realize our Vision for the school.
HOW THE MONEY WOULD BE SPENT:
We are trying to raise £4,000 and would allocate the money as follows:
1) Science Lab, ‘STEM Makers’ Hub’ equipment: £2,000 (requesting help to raise £1,000 towards this cost).
2) Buses and branding: one school bus, seating 15 students is £2,750 x 2: = £5,500 (Requesting help to raise £2,000 towards these costs).
3) Borehole: for drilling and installation: = £2,500 (We requested and received help to raise £1,000 towards these costs, and we are now sourcing the money needed to buy the pump).
Please help us to realize our vision and give our students a well-equipped science lab for STEM activities, school buses (and clean water). We want our students, and their parents, to see that they belong to a global and supportive plant-based community.
We thank you for your encouragement and support:)
Organizer
Spelmore Institute
Organizer