Ideas to Help a School and Children's Home in Ghana?

I just had a phone call from the founder of Sankofa Mbofra Fie in Ghana, David. My organisation, CHW, supports Sankofa. David grew up on the streets himself. He started his organisation, which runs both a children's home and a school, to give opportunities to the children in the village of Eguafo. David started Sankofa in 2006 and it was less than a year later when I first met him. Since then I have seen how the number of children helped by Sankofa has just kept growing! There are now fifteen children living at the home and over three hundred attend the school. CHW has given donations, whenever possible, which have been used to buy food for the children and help to pay the teachers' salaries.


David phoned to let me know about some present costs. As well as immediate needs, like food, there are other things, such as having to pay the contract for the house Sankofa uses, renewing its NGO certificate and even getting photocopies of the exam sheets for the school, because the children need to be able to take their exams soon. All of the things are necessary for Sankofa to stay running and for the children to keep advancing in their education.


To be honest, my mind is racing! I am trying to think up some ways to fundraise quickly to get a donation for Sankofa.  CHW has larger, longer term projects that we fundraise for (currently a playground project at another children's home in Ghana and a children's music therapy project in Argentina). However, sometimes the local organisations contact us with issues like David did today. David, like the directors of the other initiatives we support, understands that fundraising can be difficult and we may not be able to help at short notice, but I still hope to be able to do something. He is doing amazing work for these children, and if it is possible to contribute to this, it would be a big help to all those at Sankofa.


If anyone has any ideas, or would like to help out - either by fundraising or donating, please let me know! I am always looking for new ways to fundraise anyway and it would be great to hear from you, if you have an idea to share.

Some of the children in class, during my last visit in 2011.

With David and some of the children - my first visit to Sankofa.