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21.07.2019 General News

Lack Of Teaching And Learning Materials Made Me To Start My Project — Frank Abeku Adams

By Joshua Kobby Smith
Lack Of Teaching And Learning Materials Made Me To Start My Project  — Frank Abeku Adams
21.07.2019 LISTEN

An agri-business investor at the Ekumfi Otabanadzi district in the Central Region, Frank Abeku Adams has initiated a 'Book A Shelve' project which he believes will help tackle the challenge of illiteracy among the school children in the community.

According to him, he was motivated to start the project after he discovered that most schools in the Ekumfi Otabanadzi district lacked basic teaching and learning materials for quality education.

Mr. Adams said "Book the shelve is basically about acquiring more books and other reading materials into Ekumfi district to help fight the challenge of illiteracy. The two key areas I have identified as the source of challenge is the unavailability of reading materials and also unavailability of personnel or proper tuition to guide and fight the illiteracy challenge in the children. In fact in Ekumfi district, all basic schools have no libraries to even have reading materials. So 'Book The Shelve' is just to solve this problem."

He added that aside from being a volunteer teacher, he developed an interest in the socio-economic development of the district after sighting some government documents.

"By then I had already registered an organization back in school, so through that I lunched the project here in Ekumfi with the intention of raising more volunteers to come support and help with the illiteracy challenge, but it became a problem so I rather started advocating for funds to stock the empty libraries," he recalled.

Mr. Adams further added although 35percent of funds for the project were from his own effort, they were from some Ghanaians who were enthused about the initiative.

He emphasized that the lack of funding and trust are major challenges facing his project.

"With a literacy project like this, a lot of the challenge had to do with funds and trust. The books are very expensive and accessing the needs, some of them had to be imported from the United States. Now the people who were supporting with donations need to establish some sort of trust with me to know that their support is actually for the right course."

Mr. Adams, however, explained that regardless of the difficulties facing the project, he is happy, a section of Ekumfi residents are making good use of 'Book a Shelve' programme.

"I feel good seeing the impact the project is making and the difference even though that was not the main motive and motivation. The feeling of someone holding you in high esteem knowing that you show interest in his/her well being is what keeps me going. Do you have any plans for the future? Going forward, I intend getting more funding and the platform, get connected to people of like, mind and interest so that I could do more for the district because we have 55 basic schools in the district, and no a single one of them has a library."

His nominator, Laud Kweku Sekyi said he has been following Frank's project and is elated on the effort in executing it.

He stressed, "Frank’s project is one that I have been following on social media, aside from having a personal relationship with him, I thought it was a very laudable project that was worth sharing, and the whole world needs to see. In as much as I am personally interested in education and development, it was time to support him and nominating him was the way I could get him the support he needs. Why do you think he deserves help? I think he needs help so that he can be able to do a lot of bigger projects."

Mr. Sekyi emphasized that since Frank's project is laudable, he is confident that MTN will boost the credibility and image of the Agri-business investor for philanthropists to consider helping in the expansion of the project.

" His work has made me conscious of who I am and society and also made me realize putting the interest of people at heart and making sure they are achieved, especially children and students. I have also become an advocate of education in my community. What reputation does he have in the community? He has a solid reputation and is accepted wherever he goes. From here to where he has set up his farm(Ekumfi Otabanadzi), the people of the community have given him the land for free so if he doesn’t have that kind of credibility, the chiefs and people would not accept him like that, so from his volunteering days till now he has managed to establish himself as a very credible person and a man of accountability."

Former Assemblyman for the Ekumfi Otabanadzi electoral area, Ishaq Abdul stated that Frank through his effort has placed his school in the limelight.

He said "The community and myself were blessed to have because any teacher that came here left because there were no books and the students were not ready for school, whereas parents whose wards came from far took their wards out because there were no teaching and learning materials, but Frank became that change maker that we needed."

The former Assemblyman disclosed that the impact of Franks project is quite enormous noting, 16 children in his batch have made it for tertiary.

A beneficiary, Evans Arthur expressed gratitude to the Agri-business investor for the kind gesture and was confident the project will continue to transform many lives.

MTN Heroes of Change Season 5 was launched in November 2018 and submission of entries ended on 25th January 2019. Since the inception of MTN Heroes of Change in July 2013, a total of forty people have been identified and recognized on MTN Heroes of Change platform for committing their personal resources to improve their communities and brightening lives.

Joshua Kobby Smith
Joshua Kobby Smith

Journalist

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