The Parents

Parents are a critical part of any school - but particularly so at Bagri School in that they constructed the school building. As we said at the opening ceremony in 2006: "This school is a great tribute to Bagri community. It is your school. You built it with your own hands. And it will provide an education for your children."

The parents in the village are almost all either fishermen or farmers (and often a combination of both). The work is extremely difficult and produces a meagre return scarcely feeding their own families. The fishermen spend long periods away from the village on fishing trips along the Black Volta river and, during the dry ("hungry") season, the young men head south to farm in more fertile parts of the country. The manual work is not simply the preserve of the men. The women not only have responsibility for household chores and carry the heavy loads of water back from the river or waterhole. They also work long hours in the field, particularly at seedtime and harvest. 

The advantages of education are not necessarily obvious to parents in a village where they (and indeed every preceding generation) have no experience of school. In the months before construction started, our programme manager - Pastor Charles Karbo - held many meetings with Bagri’s parents to provide information about the proposed school, and to inform them of the benefits. Indeed when we visited during 2005, a public meeting was held to give parents an opportunity to ask us questions. A parents’ committee was subsequently formed to help plan and organise the work. 

The mud core of the structure was then built by the parents, who were divided into three work groups starting at dawn each morning. Carpenters, plasterers and other skilled labourers from the local town of Lawra were used to complete the project. 

It is a sacrifice for parents in this area to send children to school, as they cannot then be used to help with farming and other chores. It is to relieve the considerable pressure on parents that the Trust is providing a meal for each child each day. In this way, we hope that all parents in Bagri will send their children to school.