Supporting schools through microfinance, Daily Graphic Saturday February 9, 2013

A charity tour intended to support Sinapi Aba Trust’s Micro-Schools project arrived in Accra on Friday after travelling 3500 kilo-meters from Senegal.
The convoy, which began from Dakar in Senegal and travelled through Conakry in Guinea, Liberia, Cote de Ivoire and through the  Elubo border before ending  its journey in Accra, raised awareness about micro-financing in rural schools.
Micro-financing is a movement which aims to help low-income individuals or groups gain access to financial services.
The eleven vehicles which made the journey were donated by Volkswagen Germany to support the project. Two of these vehicles would be used as school buses while the rest will be sold at auction in Accra to raise money for the Micro-schools project.
The tour which started from January 28 ended on the February 8 this year saw to a team of 27 including the staff and partners of Volkswagen and Opportunity International.
At a press briefing in Accra to welcome the team, the Area Sales Manager for Volkswagen Commercial Ghana, Mr Maik Patzwaldt,  who was part of the team, said it was a tough journey from Dakar to Accra, but with determination they arrived safely to support schools in Ghana.
 “One of the most important things for the future, for a chance, is access to education and we are happy we made it,” he said.
The project launched by Opportunity International Germany (OID) in partnership with the Volkswagen Go for Schools project will initially benefit 35 rural schools in the Central and Ashanti regions.
According to the Board Chairman of Sinapi Aba Trust, Mr Joseph Ebo Hewton, Sinapi Aba Trust’s who was also part of the tour, the Micro School project started in 1994 with the intention of supporting  schools in the areas of infrastructure, tuition and school management.
He added that the project was intended to support small preparatory schools which currently don’t have enough capital.
“When you go into a lot of the villages you find individuals who have established these preparatory schools there but unfortunately they are very small and they don’t have enough capital to run the school,” Mr Hewton said.
He said the project has made progress over the years looking at the schools they had visited on their way to Accra.
 “At one of the schools when we stopped it was all excitement. One of the schools which  started with 64 students now have 260 due to our support,” he said.
The Ambassador of Opportunity International Germany (OID), Mr Henning Nathow, who initiated the   tour said driving from Senegal to Ghana was intended to spread the idea of micro-financing and micro-schools.
“We would like to transport the this idea, of social micro-financing, from Germany to the whole of West Africa, so we started in Senegal, Guinea, Cote de Ivore and now Ghana and in each country we got a lot of support from the people and even our importers,” Mr Nathow said.