RME help with local student’s Ghana Expedition
RME recently sponsored a local secondary school student, helping her reach her fundraising goal for an expedition to Ghana.
16 months of cleaning cars, babysitting and baking/selling batches of cakes and biscuits paid off for Bethany Dallain, a year 11 pupil at Weydon School in Farnham, as she managed to raise the money she needed – with a little help from RME – to be able to take part in the trip.
Along with 20 of her fellow Weydon students, Bethany travelled to Ghana in July to work with a partner school on several different projects. The trip was organised by Partner Schools Worldwide, a UK company that focus on delivering ethical, sustainable and high quality experiences for young adults. Their student visits are designed to bring an existing school partnership to life through meaningful engagement between students and teachers from both partner schools across a range of exciting activities designed to enhance mutual understanding and respect.
Prior to leaving for Ghana, each of the students were allocated a ‘buddy’ – a child of the same age and gender from the partner school. They corresponded via email and then met up each day during the trip, including a visit to each of their buddy’s homes to give gifts to their family, which on Bethany’s part included an essential tin of English shortbread!
Bethany spent over 2 weeks in Ghana, sleeping each night within a mosquito tent in one of the school classrooms. The projects undertaken during their trip included the fixing and painting of the school playground, teaching maths, science and first-aid lessons to the children, organising a sports day and devising and performing a play to the parents to raise awareness of teenage pregnancy.
The theme of the trip was Recycling. Bethany told us that it was quite normal over there for people to just throw their rubbish on the floor and it is apparently a widespread problem that is being worked on. Bethany and the Weydon team conducted litter picking around the school and held talks with the children on the disposal of rubbish and recycling to try to raise awareness of the problem.
Bethany also helped design and paint a mural on a wall in the playground which incorporated the theme.
We were thrilled that we could help Bethany take part in this excellent project, so are of course extremely happy that she had such a great time and an experience that she will no doubt benefit from for many years to come.
Well done Bethany!
