Boarding house

Many of the children at our school do not live in Asuadei itself. They come from different surrounding villages. Some even live quite far from the school. This has two major consequences.

Firstly, it takes our children a long time to get to school and to go home in the evening. The bus made three different rounds every day to get everyone to school. This of course meant that some children had to leave very early in the morning and wait at school for lessons to start. Meanwhile, the school bus could pick up the other children. It also took several hours in the evening to get everyone back home.

Second, a school bus also comes with a price tag. Not only do we have to buy petrol, but we also want to maintain the bus properly. The price of petrol has risen sharply in recent years, so that the cost of the three journeys in the morning and evening has become increasingly higher. The Ghanaian roads are of course not that good either and our school bus was no longer new at that time. This mainly ensured that the local garage owners earned a good amount of money from us.

In order to reduce these costs and to prevent our children from losing so much time every day waiting, we thought it would be a good idea to set up a boarding school on the school grounds. For example, the children who live far away from the school could stay here and the transport costs would immediately fall. The bus then only has to make two trips on the main road.

At the beginning of 2015, we were already working hard on the construction of our dormitories. The plan was to build two dormitories, one for girls and one for boys, with a small adjoining house for a supervisor. In this way there are always adults near the children at night. Proper sanitary facilities were also a priority for us if children were to live at the school.

By the end of that year, the building itself was completed, except for some minor details. Dit zorgde ervoor dat we sinds januari 2016 kinderen kunnen ontvangen in het internaat. Thanks to the running water and the new sanitary facilities, the children enjoy their stay at the school. After all, many of them do not have this luxury at home. In addition, they no longer spend hours a day traveling to and from school and they no longer have to work on their parents’ plantations. This gives them time to do homework, to study, but above all to play and just be a child. This gives us immense joy!