I just wanted to post an update on the impact of some gifts that were given as part of the Babson College and Nyansa Project trip to Ghana. To recap, my team of 35 students from Babson and four other faculty/staff/professionals were in these high schools teaching entrepreneurship and business planning to literally hundreds of Ghanaian teens during the week. During three days in the middle of the trip, I visited all of the 13 schools in the Western Region of Ghana that we worked with this year. I talked to the headmasters of each school and viewed their current resources to see where a gift of a computer lab would be most needed and be put to most effective use. It was a very tough decision to narrow down to the few that we could support this year, through the generosity of PricewaterhouseCoopers, StoneTurn Group and Vitale, Caturano & Company. I can tell you that the situation is tough. Overall, across all the 13 schools, the average is not even one computer per 100 students, which is mind-boggling given that the government has instituted a new curriculum that requires computer skill development in all students.

I delivered 9 almost new computers to Ahantaman Senior High School, ten almost new computers to Adiembra Secondary School in Sekondi and nine almost new computers to Takoradi District Secondary School (TADISCO). All high schools are in the the Sekondi/Takoradi twin city area, which is the third or fourth largest city in Ghana. Before this gift, Ahantaman, had 10 working computers for approximately 1400 students; Adiembra had 9 working computers for over 900 students; and Takoradi had 11 working computers for over 1500 students.

I wish you could have been there each time when I walked in to tell the headmistress and headmasters that their schools had been selected. One exclaimed that she had been praying to God that this would happen ever since I stopped by to do my evaluation and immediately burst into a schoolwide teacher’s meeting to tell them the news. A huge cheer went up, and this cheer was loud, but it was dwarfed by the commotion in another’s classroom when I stepped in to say hello and announce the gift to some students. A headmaster at yet another school must have said, “Praise God!” and shook my hand at least 10 times. He showed me a request on his desk from the teachers for three computers that he had just received that day and he indicated he had been troubled by how the school could even afford this.

I can’t begin to describe what a great day it was when I dropped these off to the schools! I delivered the computers in a van, and it was quite a sight to see a whole stream of students helping to unload and carry the computers off to be put to immediate use at each school. It was truly an unbelievable sight, and the joy that was in the air attests to the need for these resources and the impact they will have.

Here is a video created by local producer Confidence Yintii after all the computers were set up and in use already. Thanks again to these organizations for their gifts. What an unbelievable impact they will have and they will certainly help many students better themselves.