2022-23 started with an update on the progress of the school in Bunkpurugu, Ghana that we have supported since 2015.
Here is an update from Father Dominic Abiriga, “The new classroom block covers pupils from kindergarten one (KG.1) up to primary six (P.6). The Junior High section uses the old classroom block. As pastoral staff of Bunkpurugu parish, we are more than happy that children can now access education in good classrooms. At present, the total number of students in the school is 545, from kindergarten one to Junior High three.”
2021-22 has seen us continue to make wonderful connections to this project which our school has supported since 2015.
Ms Copeland’s class has embraced Building Hope for Bunkpurugu as their class charity. We plan to send more letters to our Ghanaian school friends and raise lots of money throughout the year.
2019-2020
2019-2020 was another fantastic year of support for a charity very close to our hearts. Our Ghanaian friends’ school is now nearly built thanks to all our hard work!
As well as writing letters to our Ghanaian friends and weaving their lives into our RE lessons and liturgies, we have also kept up our fundraising efforts. The pinnacle of this has been claiming Regional Winners of the Better Energy Awards with our project “A Journey for Hope” and donating our £500 prize money to this wonderful cause.
Here’s what the judges had to say:
“In a beautifully presented folder, the children of English Martyr’s Catholic Voluntary Academy explored their hopes for the future of our planet with children at the school they partner with in Bunkpurugu, Ghana. It was fascinating to see how often the opinions of the children from very different parts of the world coincided with each other, despite the contrast in climate, affluence and infrastructure. All were united in the view that they wanted our planet to be a better place for all in the future.”
2018
To date, we have raised a total of £13,415.00 for our Building Hope in Bunkpurugu project! Our fundraising continues to support our Ghanaian friends in building their new school. Here are some of our recent projects.
Our year 6 sold tickets for their end-of-year production of Disney’s The Lion King.
It was an incredible production with amazing choreography, fabulous costumes and some truly wonderful acting from our year 6 pupils.
Our Earth Guardians created the first ever EM Hope Magazine.
It was packed full of wildlife facts and games and was sold in the Tuck Shop. It raised an incredible £38.38 for the project.
Our Year 3 children wrote, illustrated and published a story book called A Journey for Hope.
It was inspired by the children’s hopes for the planet and featured four African animals on a mission to explore the world. We sold copies of this book to our community and raised £200.00
We held an Inventors’ Fair to see if we could tackle global pollution problems at home and in Africa.
Our judge from Rolls Royce’s sustainability team was very impressed! Niamh’s winning entry was a steel ship which would travel the oceans collection plastic pollution with on-board drones to sort it into recycling piles. Our 12 finalists all received prizes from Ghana including sweets, biscuits and traditional fabric.
We had a whole-school Ghana themed week
We met African animals; created Ghanaian food, jewellery and artwork; learnt about Ghanaian culture and much more.
We launched our new school badge
The theme was “A Journey to Hope” with all profits going to the Building Hope project – we still have some available to buy at £2 each. Building Hope for Bunkpurugu Badge 2018
We professionally recorded a CD called “EM Sing”
It is a collection of songs performed by our whole school community to raise funds – some CDs are still available!
Reception created African inspired shopping bags which raised a huge amount of money – £152.00!
In fact, every child, in every class has contributed to this project and we are incredibly proud of their commitment to our friends in Bunkpurugu.
Visit to Bunkpurugu June 2018 – What impact has all our fundraising made?
A team from the Multi-Academy Trust, including our very own Mrs Pettifer, visited Bunkpurugu to see for themselves how our project to build a school there is progressing. We met the children, in particular those who had written us letters two years ago – Norbert, Laurencia, Philip, Joyce and many more. These children have such incredible potential to achieve great things in their lives, but with their existing school building in such poor condition, they do not have the opportunities they deserve.
Building update:
Thanks to all our fundraising, the new school building is looking very impressive. There are walls in place for all the classrooms and it is possible to visualise what the finished school will look like. Following a meeting with Sister Bernadine (The Director of Catholic Education in Northern Ghana) we discovered that Our Lady of Hope Primary School is on track from becoming one of “the worst” school buildings to “the best school” in the district.
Moving forward, the team in Ghana are hopeful that over summer the structure will have a secure roof, working toilets, and that one class (Year 7) will be working in classroom one by September! This will mean that those very children we first came to know and love, Norbert, Laurencia, Philip and co. will be the first to benefit from the school they have inspired us to support.
