 Kelly Pearson Kelly Pearson, longtime supporter of PAMBE Ghana, recently spoke with Judy Federa and Jane Wheeler about her work with PAMBE Ghana and other organizations as a “professional volunteer.” An Oklahoma City native, Kelly and her husband Paul have two children, Emily and Evan, still at home and two adult children. When Emily came along, Kelly decided to get out of the 8-5 rat race in order to spend more time with Evan and Emily. This gave her more time to volunteer in the community and put her strongly-held beliefs about “giving back” into action.
Judy & Jane: How did you first become involved with PAMBE Ghana?
Kelly Pearson: Emily was in Alice’s class at Westminster School. We were looking forward to Evan being in her class the next year, but were surprised when Alice notified us that summer that she wasn’t coming back for the fall session. However, the reason was intriguing: she wanted to go back to Ghana and start a school.
Nicole Bondurant (former PAMBE Ghana Board Member) and I decided to help with her project. We made a pact: we were going to jump in just to get our feet wet. PAMBE Ghana offered us the chance to do things that we hadn’t done before.
J & J: How did your work evolve?
KP: We had a family meeting and decided that we wanted to consistently support PAMBE Ghana. After we decided on an amount, we committed to an annual donation for 3 years. Then, 3 years turned into 4. Then, I was asked to join the board. I’d never done any fundraising, but started just doing it. I didn’t have any experience in retail either, but I decided to volunteer full time at the Global Market so it could be open in Midtown during the weekdays. The family supported PAMBE Ghana too; Paul set up tables at events and Emily continues to volunteer at the Global Market. My older daughter, Kiley helped design the PAMBE Ghana logo and helped with the newsletters and graphic design for many years. At the time, I was only working with PAMBE Ghana, but later I started working on the the Edgemere School Project, devoting half-time to each project. Later, I found I was working mostly on Edgemere School, so I decided to resign from the PAMBE Ghana Board to work exclusively with Edgemere School.
J & J: Why did you decide to contribute so much to PAMBE Ghana?
KP: One reason was our kids. They both have an ancestral connection to Ghana. We wanted to show that even though they are being raised by white parents, we acknowledge their background and culture.
J & J, What has it been like to start at the first of the project and then see it mature?
KP: When you start a project and it grows, you see the real benefits. With PAMBE Ghana it was the benefits to the children. It means that all the time spent went to good purpose. The best part of volunteering is seeing something grow. I don’t want to waste the time I have on the planet. I want to be useful.
I feel it is important to spend some time giving back. Some people give dollars; I give me. It is rewarding to work toward a goal along with like- minded people.
J & J: What are some things you are proud of or things you learned?
KP: I am proud of getting Heritage Hall involved. It was really more Emily than me. Emily was studying celebrations in first grade. She asked her teacher, Delaine Evans, if she could bring Alice to talk about the Fire Festival. The teacher was quite happy to have Alice come. Mrs. Evans got very excited and suggested that they start doing the annual first grade art show as a fundraiser for PAMBE Ghana.
Another thing was working with the Bricktown Rotary. We went to give a presentation and didn’t know what to expect, but immediately afterwards, a woman walked up and gave us a $100 check in memory of her mother. She gave us a check every time we came. Their involvement has continued throughout the years and they have even partnered with the Rotary in Ghana.
During my volunteer time with PAMBE Ghana, I learned so much about fundraising, public relations and retail by just jumping in with both feet and learning along the way!
Thank you to the Canadian Rainbow of Hope for Children (ROHFC) for providing funding to support the PAMBE Ghana Health, Nutrition and Sanitation Program!
The objectives of the project are: 
- To provide mid-day lunches for the students to include purchasing food, the salary of a school lunch coordinator, and hauling and transport of foodstuffs from the community and local markets.
- To provide basic health care to the 250 students to include paying the National Health Insurance Annual Premium and purchasing first aid products for the school.
- To foster sanitation at the school to purchase soap and sanitary related cleaning products.
Previous support from ROHFC in 2013 and 2014 included the funding of particular staffing and operation and maintenance programs at the La’Angum Learning Center. In 2014-15, ROHFC provided PAMBE Ghana with new infrastructure to improve the facilities, specifically building a library and a technology lab, including a system of collecting and storing rainwater for those using these facilities. ROHFC also assisted the Rotary clubs of Wainwright, Alberta, Watford, Ontario and Tamale, Ghana to install solar panels and computers in the technology lab.
Hepatitis B virus has spread and become more prevalent and severe, especially among young people in our communities. There are many myths about the cause of this viral disease, and modern medicine is often sought as a last resort, when the infection is at an advanced stage. Sadly, most of such patients die within 6 months. Indeed, this was the cause of death of our beloved teacher, Issah Musah, in 2009!
Happily, Hepatitis B screening, vaccination and treatment are increasingly available in many government and private health facilities. Screening costs Ghc 5 ($1.30) and the 3-dose vaccination costs Ghc 25 ($6.50) per dose. If infected, the medication for the 6-month treatment is Ghc 50 ($13.00) per month. These costs are not covered by the National Health Insurance program. Thus, these services remain out of reach of many people.
It is in this light that we embarked on a Hepatitis B screening, vaccination and treatment project in LLC. In mid April, Alice initiated a collaborative relationship with a nurse at the Gambaga Health Centre and a Lab technician (private) to undertake screening of all 250 students and all PAMBE Ghana staff, volunteer cooks and the two caretakers. Staff could bring their families, but they would pay the cost. The team generously reduced the cost of vaccination to Ghc 14 ($3.65) per dose for LLC.
The first day began with a Powerpoint presentation by the health team on Hepatitis B, with lower elementary students and their teachers, followed by those of upper elementary. We learned that the liver performs vital functions in the body to keep us healthy and strong, that Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver, and the signs and symptoms of a sick liver. We learned that there are many types of Hepatitis but the focus was on Hepatitis B.
 The computer lab was transformed into a laboratory; the summer hut became the injection room and the library was the consulting room. The nurse drew blood samples and the lab technician did the testing of each sample. It is worth noting here that our solar system provided power for the lab works.
All who tested negative moved on to the summer hut to be vaccinated by the community nurse. The screening and vaccination was completed the following day. Nine of the students tested positive.
We had a small intimate talk with the students, explaining why they could not be vaccinated and asking them to come to school with their parents /guardians the following morning. The Head teacher and Alice were able to contact the parents directly and invite them.
Both parents /guardians of affected students responded to the call. Here too, the health team was very generous. They offered to test all the parents /guardians and any child who came with them, free of charge. After a health talk on Hepatitis in general and HBV in particular, and question-and-answer period, the lab technician and his assistant proceeded to test all the parents and the babies and toddlers who came with their mothers.
All but one of the positive adult cases were women. Two siblings of one of our students also tested positive, while their father was negative. These results led to the conclusion that most of the infections were from mother-to-child.
The lab technician visited with both parents where possible and discussed their test results and the way forward with them. He encouraged the couples to seek treatment for affected partners as soon as they could and advised the rest to take the 3-dose vaccination, both available in Gambaga for purchase.
 He also discussed the treatment schedule of the LLC students with parents and arranged to meet them the following day with the necessary medication to begin treatment. PAMBE Ghana took charge of these medications. The nine children will be tested at the end of the 6-month treatment and, depending on the results, will begin the 3-dose vaccination or continue treatment.
Your donation today will help pay for this community-wide screening, provide students and family members with preventive vaccinations, and treat those already infected. Please help - click on the DONATE button.
There is no question La’Angum Learning Center has had a huge impact on the remote communities it serves, but how good a school is it? From the start, the PAMBE Ghana board intended for the school to deliver measurable excellence but has struggled to identify meaningful ways to assess our educational outcomes.
One major stumbling block is that the Ghana Education Service (GES) does not administer any standardized assessment test until completion of the 9th grade. We plan to compare our graduates’ outcomes to those from other schools, but this is still three years off, and doesn’t speak to how our students are mastering their own grade school curriculum.
GES does provide curriculum guidelines for the elementary grades. LLC has incorporated these achievement levels into our curriculum development so that our graduates may make a smooth transition into the GES-run junior high school system. Our teachers assess student mastery on an ongoing basis. This, however, does not provide insight into how effective our unique program is compared to the traditional GES approach to elementary education.
Earlier this year we were disappointed to find ourselves in a blind alley after discovering a report based on a recent grade school assessment test developed by USAID. This report compared student mastery of certain benchmarks in schools across Ghana. We hoped to obtain a copy of this test and administer it to our students so that we could produce an effective comparison of LLC’s performance against GES outcomes regionally and nationally. Unfortunately, the test itself has proved impossible to locate. We will continue to pursue this through our contacts within GES and at USAID. For now, however, we must move on.
Through PAMBE Ghana’s relationship with the regional GES office, Alice was able to coordinate development and administration of a 6th grade mastery test, designed by 6th grade teachers to evaluate four benchmarks: English, math, science and citizenship.
The resulting data are very promising: LLC students outperformed students at two GES (public) schools and performed equally well as those at another local private school. LLC has the highest score of the combined benchmarks: 185. The other private school achieved the next highest score of 150, while the two GES schools received total scores of 119 and 108. The highest scoring LLC student was a girl who is the first in her family to ever attend school. She scored a total of 295.
LLC students were particularly strong in science and math (see graphs showing scores of individual students). Our students’ average science score was 57, followed by the private school with 43, and scores of 40 and 38 for the GES schools. LLC’s average math score was 42 – the next highest score of any of the other schools was 26.
This was a first step at creating a meaningful, reliable assessment tool that could be administered each year. We have learned from this experience, and will make changes in the test and in how it is administered. We see that our students have room to improve. We will address that in our ongoing work with teachers and curriculum.
PAMBE Ghana analyzed these test results in consultation with Denise Caudill, a former World Neighbors staff member who has lived and worked extensively in Western Africa. Caudill currently consults with nonprofits. Our Board’s curriculum committee—which includes certified Montessori teachers, college professors and other education professionals—will use the results to provide additional teacher training opportunities, classroom materials and curriculum oversight.
 AT&T Community Network volunteers displaying American soul food
Thank you to all our supporters and the volunteers who made the PAMBE Ghana Fest a wonderful success: musicians Jahruba Lambeth and Steve McLinn, the staff and cooks of St. Paul's Cathedral, AT&T Community Network Volunteers, the raffle donors and the PAMBE Ghana Global Market volunteers.
 Steve and Jahruba enliven the evening with their music  Hank and Joan Bowen offering food typical of Barbados
 I am Mary Ayaba. I was born in 1989 at Gambaga in Northern Region to Mr. and Mrs. Ayaba. I have two brothers: Peter and Noah.
I had my basic education at the Presbyterian Primary and Junior High Schools in Gambaga. I continued my secondary education at Nalerigu Senior High (NASS) as a General Arts student.
Life after Senior High School turned very difficult for me. My father died prematurely, which brought a lot of problems to me and my siblings. In 2008, I left Northern Region and went down south in search for a better life. By the grace of the Merciful God, I had admission into Global Professional Studies to pursue a course in Health and Safety Management.
Since childhood, I have had the desire to be a health educator. In 2013, I got the chance to be trained as a first aid trainer. I did my one year national service at the Ghana Red Cross Society in Bolgatanga. There I was a team leader and trained drivers on first aid and emergency procedures.
After the national service, life got tough again. Finding work was hard to come by and depended on who you know. I was very happy to be employed as a teaching assistant at PAMBE Ghana La’angum Learning Centre. I am very grateful for the opportunity to be a teacher and a student as well. I am learning a lot at La’angum Learning Centre, and it is making who Mary Ayaba is today and will be tomorrow.
 Siisu Mumuni has a bachelor’s degree in history (B.A History), from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). Thus, he considers himself a Social Scientist. He also has a certificate in computer technology, which complements his social science degree.
Siisu lives in Langbinsi with his extended family of 13, which includes his Mother and Father, 8 siblings, and his wife and a son.
Siisi has been interested in teaching since childhood. During his high school and university years, he used all his vacation time in doing voluntary teaching at Frukan Junior High. He did his National Service as a teacher in Tuna Senior High in 2012/2013 academic year. He is currently the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) teacher in La’angum Learning Centre.
Siisu is a very creative and handy man. He able to translate what he sees or reads concretely with the hand.
Siisu aspires to be a social reformer by analyzing things in the theological perspective and by being a good example in his daily life. He says, “when the body relaxes, the mechanism of the body also relaxes”. He therefore keeps himself busy with subsistence farming.
Siisu is sociable, friendly and embraces views from other religious faiths. He uses these to strengthen his faith and love for everyone because he believes that friendship is one of the most important values in human life.
 The La’Angum school is helpful to us in Bumboazio here because I used to go round looking for somebody to read or identify and sort our hospital cards for us. Now, I have 3 children in my house that can do that. I have an older child who has been in a different local Langbinsi school for four years now but cannot read. I want to plead with you to accept her to join your school. One other thing I like about this school is the food you serve the children. Our children are healthy and always smiling when they come back from school unlike their brothers and sisters in the Langbinsi schools. After school, they are now used to sitting down with us and telling stories about school, teachers and friends. One thing I want to ask is to add 7th, 8th, and 9th grades to La’Angum school. This will help our students to pass the Basic Education Certificate Examination at the end of 9th grade.
Thank you to the marvelous donors who helped us purchase a Motor King!
 On Tuesday, our Motor King arrived, all assembled and ready with drums for hauling water. There was so much excitement and many teachers tried their hand in the school compound, and found out very quickly that driving a Motor King is quite different from a motorcycle. Wuni Baani, the Lunch Program Coordinator will be in charge. With Charles’ help and local entrepreneur with expertise in these vehicles, I drew up a simple contract /guide for the Motor King driver/caretaker. He’s practicing this weekend and will have scheduled time with students to bring water to school.
 Robert Issahaku Bugri is a gentleman of 29 years from Samini, a village northwest of Langbinsi. Robert is the sixth and last born of his parents. All are boys. Robert is the only son of his parents who had access to formal education; all his five elder brothers joined their father in his farming activities.
Robert completed the 3-year Diploma in Basic Education (DBE) University of Cape Coast distance education programme, with support of PAMBE Ghana.
Robert began teaching at the PAMBE Ghana La’angum school in September, 2009. He has taught all the primary classes except P6. He began helping other teachers to guide the KG1 (pre-K) students in his first year, then KG2 (K), and P1 to P5. He is currently the P5 teacher.
Robert is married to a young lady by name Felicia Ape with two children Frank and Joana. Frank is a P2 student in LLC. Joana will start school next year.
Robert and his wife are true believers in God through the Christian faith. Robert has planted a Church in Bumboazio community, called Grace Community Church. Robert is the lead pastor and goes there every Sunday morning to preach and Wednesday evenings for prayers and thanksgiving. Ten of the LLC students and one teacher are among the members of the church.
Robert has so many plans towards the future. He will be adding and updating this biography and sharing as time goes.
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Donate Today
Your Donation Today Will Help PAMBE Ghana Provide:
-- Teacher's salary
-- Children’s health insurance
-- Montessori materials
-- Teacher education
PAMBE Ghana is a 501(c)(3)
registered charitable organization.
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