A young woman from Peasedown St John is collecting children’s storybooks to send to girls in Ghana, after volunteering in the country for three months as part of the government funded development programme, International Citizen Service.
Emma Parker, 24, along with volunteers from Ghana, worked for three months with overseas partner organisations to support marginalised groups including women, children and people with disabilities.
Emma supported the organisation Create Change which works to empower marginalised girls to become leaders in academics, community and business by improving the quality of education in rural areas, sponsoring brilliant but needy girls through education and setting up businesses for sponsored girls who are not able to continue their education.
Create Change aims to one day be run entirely by girls who have been supported by the charity.
In order to achieve this, Emma and her fellow British and Ghanaian volunteers worked hand in hand with the Create Change Interns, themselves former beneficiaries of the charity, to improve access to education for girls in rural areas.
Setting up community kids clubs, running community awareness raising events about the benefits of female education, making educational posters and resources and training the interns on how to plan and run the literacy clubs were just some of the ways that the ICS team worked with the sponsored girls to ensure the sustainability of the project.
Emma said: “Every child has the right to safe, formal, quality education and access to lifelong learning.
“However, unfortunately there are many barriers to female education and in Ghana, girls, especially those from rural communities, are often forced to leave school while many others never have the opportunity to go to school in the first place.
“Create Change is working hard to improve girls access to education through their sponsorship programmes and through the literary and community clubs that they run, however they are working with limited resources and are struggling in particular with the lack of children’s books.’
Emma is now collecting children’s storybooks to send over to Ghana. If you would like to donate any children’s storybooks, email Emma via [email protected] so she can arrange collection before sending them over to Create Change.
