Background

The Northern Region of Ghana is a vibrant cultural center, remote from the well-known capitol city of Accra, where people live and work in a context of high creativity and low outside support. As a result, educational and other development efforts in the North include work with NGOs, both local and international.  The Bryn Mawr and Haverford communities are fortunate to work with colleagues in the North on such initiatives, the keystone being Titagya Schools, in a range of community agencies and emerging partnership with the local university.

Titagya Schools is a social enterprise that builds and operates schools to provide high-quality, early childhood education in northern Ghana, a rural region with a literacy rate of 22%. Currently, Titagya operates a pre-school and a kindergarten for 120 students in Dalun, Ghana and 90 students in Kpong. The program uses an interactive, progressive curriculum to give children a head start in language, creative thinking, and academic, emotional and social skills.  Titagya also trains local public teachers on strategies and techniques related to child-centered education, and is partnering with the government in to transform early education in Ghana.

Bryn Mawr and Haverford College students, faculty and staff members have been involved with curricular collaborations, cross-visits, research, and summer internships with community organizations in Dalun as well as with Titagya.  This summer, five bi-co students, plus an alum of Haverford and a student from a New York university, lived and worked in Dalun for 8 weeks with funding from a range of campus units (including the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship, the Hepburn Center, the Bryn Mawr Deans’ Office, and the President’s Fund for International Iniatives). Their summer began with pre-deparature and on-site orientations with local mentors. In addition to a range of specific and joint projects, the interns took regular lessons in Dagbani, the language of Northern Ghana, and interacted with the community in a range of ways.  Planning is already underway for summer 2014.

Summer Felllowship 2014 Project

Background:

Established in 2009, Titagya is “a pre-school and kindergarten for 80 students in Dalun, Ghana that utilizes the most interactive curriculum in the region to give children a strong head start in their language, academic, emotional, creative thinking, and social skills.”  Recently, two more schools were made available in the nearby community, Pong.

To learn more, please go to: http://titagyaschools.org/wordpress/

Project(s):

Interns at Titagya Schools worked under the guidance of committed faculty and staff. The demanding and rewarding work of teaching required that each intern work alongside a teacher to facilitate learning, to engage students in interactive activities and to use creativity when working with (or without) teaching learning materials (TLMs).  When interns and faculty were not teaching, they worked together on creating lesson plans and units focused on a variety of topics such as soil, the human body, creativity, cultural festivals and the five senses. Through team work, Titagya Schools implemented important new changes that included a school library and curricular integration of storytelling/storybook reading and arts. Lastly, the team developed a weekly consultation and creation time for the faculty to work on curriculum going forward.

As an intern at Titagya Schools…I learned about and experienced cross-cultural collaboration. Working with the teachers and other individuals dedicated to education-related issues was a wonderful experience and a reminder that regardless of where we come from and our personal backgrounds, we can work together towards a common goal…I understood the importance of being patient and of truly being open to ideas that differ from my own.

~Deborah, Titagya Summer 2013 Intern

 I had the honor and pleasure of working with [extraordinary teachers, administrators and interns] to create curriculum modules that I believe will have a lasting effect on the curricula and pedagogical goals of the Titagya Schools organization.  I also had the opportunity to co-teach a class of 25 Kindergarten students for two months, in which I became devoted to fostering student learning and gaining understanding of each student’s needs in the classroom.

~Ava, Titagya Summer 2013 Intern

As someone who started Titagya Schools when I was a junior at Haverford, it’s exciting to have students come to Ghana to help us support Titagya students’ learning.  This past summer, we had the largest group of interns we’ve ever had, and it was great to see all the new ideas and work that the team was able to advance.

~Andrew Garza, Titagya Schools Co-Founder