GO-BACK AND GIVE-BACK COMMUNITY PROJECT: The Untold

PROJECT TITLE: Settling an educational dispute between the Japido and Tadando communities in Kpandai, Northern Region, Ghana

PROJECT AIM: Provide the Japido community children with quality and accessible education

Stories Untold, Impacts Untold

About five years ago, I collaborated with one of my cousins, who was also at the Univeristy of Education, Winneba (UEW), to solve a 10-year problem between the Japido and Tadando communities. To give a sense of the problem and project, I write the below:

From 2004 to 2009, the Japido community started a community-based primary school for their wards. They ran the school for a year and later informed their neighboring community, which is Tadando, about their initiative and whether they would add their wards. The Tadando community agreed and added their children to the school, which was located in Japido. But before the Tadando people added their wards, the Japido community had already made their initiative known to the Kpandai District Education Office. Now, the two communities have continued to strive for one goal: to make the school a government-based one.

I was one of the students in the school—the first to get to JHS, SHS, and university. I remember very well how the Education Directorate in Salaga and Tamale made these communities pay several thousand cedis for them to accept the school as a government school. These communities have been looted several times in this regard for about five years. While all these were ongoing, it was established and agreed that the school would be built in the Japido community, where the idea originated. Also, the Japido community is the landowner; even where the Tadando people reside, it was given to them by the Japido community.

Now, after the back and forth with the education people, it was time for the school to be built. The Tadando community, by paying some of the officials in the education office, reverted the decision to build the school in Japido to Tadando. This was in 2009; I remember that I was preparing to leave for JHS. After they bribed these officials (they claimed), the school was built in the Tadando community. Since then, the Japido community has vowed that their children will never step foot in the school built in the Tadando community. They asserted that I can’t start my initiative, spend all my efforts to see its completion, and then, after inviting you, you steal that from me. Anchored on this, let them have their school; we will send our children to another school.

Since this time in the 2009/2010, academic year, the children of the Japido community (my beloved community) have walked for close to 2 hours to attend school. At this time, I had graduated from the Japido Community School (which is now Tadando Primary School) to Balai D/A JHS. After graduating from SHS in 2016, I went back to the community and saw children walking in struggle every day to their respective schools. I saw the need for a solution. However, I was very young, both in age and knowledge, to get the attention of the community when attempting to address this problem. The sad thing is that, since 2010, past Members of Parliament, MCEs, and Education Directors for the Kpandai District have attempted to address this problem but were never successful.

In 2018, thank God for the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Programme at KNUST (the best scholarship one can ever have), I got into the noble Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (the globally best place for quality education) to study bachelor of science in human settlement planning (the best program to be studied). While receiving transformative leadership training from the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Programme and being trained by the best program regarding global and local development, I gathered skills to address this issue in my beloved community.

Returning to the community after my long vacation and first industrial training, I related this issue to my cousin, and we decided to find solutions to it. To this end, we tackled this long-standing problem. We first met the community leader (chief) and inquired about the problem, what the community members were saying about it, or, in other words, their stance. After his narration (even though we were conversant with the problem at hand, we just wanted to get all the nitty-gritty of the problem), it was known that the members of the Japido community, together with the elders of the community, vowed not to allow their children to go to the school in question (Tandando primary school). Following this, we relayed to him (the chief) the implications (consequences) of their stance for the lives of the children in the community and the general future development of the community. This same approach was replicated when we met all the elders, one by one, in the homes. We also met the women leaders, the youth leaders in the community, and some influential church leaders in the community (note, there is no single Muslim in the community).

After we had met all the key stakeholders in the matter and somewhat made them buy into our submissions regarding the problem, we discussed with the chief calling a community meeting to relay what we had discussed with all the members of the community. The meeting was held on August 6th, 2019 under the prominent mango trees in the Japido community. During the meeting, some of the members disagreed with the idea that we allow our young ones to attend school at the Tadando primary school, but the good thing is that we had the majority of the community members, i.e., the elders, and all we met before the meeting bought into our stance. In this regard, those opposing it finally concluded that, if the majority agrees to our submission based on the benefits it will, in the long run, bring to the community, they will also buy into it. This was a great day for me and my cousin.

From here, I went to speak with the headmaster of the Tadando primary school regarding how we had finally succeeded in changing the minds of the people in my community. Thus, I requested his assistance while I went with the representatives of the community to meet the Kpandai District Chief Executive (DCE) and the District Education Director. On the 12th of August, 2019, I met the District Education Director together with two community representatives and the headmaster. The reason I decided to meet these executives of the district was for them to sponsor the cost of solving the issue. Given that the people vowed, they narrated the need for sacrifice based on their beliefs. So, after meeting with the DCE and the District Education Director, they were excited that this was finally going to be resolved. Given that, they have severally attempts to address it but were unsuccessful. To this end, they provided the money needed for the sacrifice. Before the sacrifice was made in November 2019, I had returned to school and left the project in the hands of the two community representatives who accompanied me to the DCE and the District Education Director. After the sacrifice, it is time for the children to be allowed to attend the Tadando primary school, which is about a 3–7-minute walk from the Japido community. But the community members said it would take a while for them to take their children there. Since then, I have continually monitored the progress through the representatives I handed the project to.

Finally, in about four years since the problem was solved, my people have now allowed their children to attend school in the community. About 40 children from my community have been sent to the Tadando primary school. “The door is now opened to all, born and unborn, in the Japido community to meet the primary educational needs at ease.”

Well, this is not the type of project that will generate money momentarily or employ 10–20 people. But its impacts are intergenerational. I foresee researchers and planners (like me), engineers, architects, doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, economists, and all types of professionals and changemakers coming out of these children who now can access primary education with ease.

Next, I am working to get a modern community library to aid them in all-round development.

I cannot thank the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program at KNUST enough for all the support you have provided.

I will say, “We live to leave a legacy of transformation. So, more is yet to come.”

Stephen Biliyitorb Liwur (BSc)

MasterCard Foundation Scholar Alumnus, KNUST

Cohort Five (5)

MasterCard Foundation Scholars Program at KNUST

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