Two new classrooms for the Tiehisuma School in Taha – a place to learn, dream, and grow

There is great joy at Taha-Schul-Projekt e.V. – but even greater joy in Taha, Ghana. After months of intensive construction and planning, it is finally done: Tiehisuma School now has a total of two classrooms and a library.

In just five months, two new rooms were added, blending seamlessly into the existing structure. The school now shines in a fresh yellow, with green metal shutters and a sturdy corrugated roof – a sight that radiates hope and new beginnings. 

Alhassan Salifu, chairman of the Northern Educational Alliance (NEA), our Ghanaian partner organization, is especially proud. For years, NEA has been working to address the major educational challenges in disadvantaged northern regions. The expansion of the Tiehisuma School – meaning “good thoughts” – is an important step in this mission.

The construction was carried out by a local building company and closely supervised by NEA. This close collaboration between German and Ghanaian partners, as well as the involvement of local professionals, is a shining example of how sustainable development can succeed across continents. Despite challenges such as fluctuating material prices, the project was successfully completed.

In the long term, this expansion is a crucial step forward: with the new classrooms and library, the school now increasingly meets the requirements of the Ghana Education Service – an important milestone on the way to government recognition.

“The Tiehisuma School has already changed many lives. Moreover, we have laid the foundation for long-term educational support for young people – and especially for girls – in Tamale,” emphasizes Alhassan Salifu.

The project partners would like to express their heartfelt thanks to all donors and supporters who made this milestone possible – through generosity, commitment, or financial contributions. The new rooms are more than just walls – they are a promise for the future.

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Moving forward – progress at the Tiehisuma School in Taha

Good news from Taha: construction of the new building at Tiehisuma School is progressing rapidly! Since the beginning of the year, the existing school has been expanded by two new rooms, built – like the original classroom – in the traditional local style: with handmade concrete blocks and a sturdy corrugated metal roof.

After all the bricks were pressed – a task traditionally carried out by the entire village community in Ghana – construction advanced quickly. This collective effort is a powerful demonstration of how deeply the local community supports the project. The roof structure has now been completed, and the building is taking shape more and more each day.

One particular challenge was keeping classes running during construction. Lessons continued in the existing classroom right next to the construction site. But our project partners found a simple solution:

“We just moved classes to the afternoon and built in the mornings,” explains Alhassan Salifu, chairman of our partner organization Northern Educational Alliance (NEA)

For the students, this was no problem – quite the opposite. Since much of the teaching this school year takes place via video, the lighting conditions in the late afternoon were even better.

Every single step is an important milestone. The shell of the building is complete, the structure is solid – and the project continues to progress smoothly.

With this milestone, Taha-Schul-Projekt e.V. would also like to highlight the school’s official name once again: Tiehisuma School. “Tiehisuma” means “good thoughts” in the local language – a beautiful guiding principle that inspires the students as well as our partners at NEA and ourselves.

Thus, in Taha, not only a school building is growing, but also a place of hope, knowledge, and collaboration – a symbol of how education can build bridges across continents.

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Construction start for the school extension

The construction can begin!
Thanks to a successful fundraising campaign at the end of 2024, we have raised enough funds to continue building our secondary school in northern Ghana in spring 2025. With this, we aim to give even more students the opportunity to earn a secondary school diploma.

The foundation for this project had already been—quite literally—laid: foresightedly, and in close coordination with our local project partners, the foundations for the expansion were already put in place when the first classroom was built.

This approach allowed us to counteract Ghana’s high inflation and stay independent of weather conditions, since foundation work would have been impossible during the rainy season.

Our local project partner, Alhassan Salifu, chairman of the Northern Educational Alliance (NEA), was thrilled when the machines of the local construction company Rahman Ltd. arrived and the work could finally begin.

 This construction phase includes not only another classroom but also a library. Here, students will find not only textbooks and reference materials, but also quiet spaces to study and do their homework – something not always possible at home. With the addition of the second classroom, up to 80 young people will now have a place to learn and the chance to complete their secondary education.

With this expansion, it is not only the school’s infrastructure that grows, but also its perspective: our association strengthens the educational landscape and creates space for learning, initiative, and community – locally and sustainably.

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Access road

Die alte Zufahrtsstraße wies keinen guten Zustand auf

Due to the heavy rainfall during the rainy season, the access road to our school was severely damaged. Deep trenches and potholes had formed, and the road was no longer in an acceptable condition. Although there isn’t much traffic at the school, the driveway is still important, especially when larger machines need to access the school for future construction work.

That’s why we had the road repaired. First, it was filled with locally sourced gravel, then compacted with a grader. Finally, a drainage ditch was created to prevent future erosion. You can see the progress in the attached photos.

 

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The school is completed!

Even though not many days have passed since the plastering of the walls, the pictures which our partners sent us in November looked very different. As if somebody put the technicolor into the camera, the building shines now in bright colors.
We are really proud of the beautiful school and you can understand why if you see the pictures. The building shines in yellow and red and fittingly also windows with green blinds were installed. One could think that the painters got their inspiration from the Ghanaian national flag.

Hence the construction is complete. Currently the furniture is being made but this should also be done in a few days. Then is will not take long and the school can open its doors. In March education for 40 students should start. Since one classroom isn’t sufficient to be approved as secondary school, we will run it as a special type. Our so-called pre-school should prepare the kids for the Junior High school exams. For this purpose, three qualified teachers will be employed.

The start of the education and the running of the school come along with big costs for us. Exercise books, textbooks and pens have to be bought and of course, the teachers need to be paid. For this we have started a new donation campaign. With the slogan “2021 – In Taha Schule machen” we collect donations for the above-mentioned purposes. At the same moment we want to inform in Germany about our project and the educational situation in Ghana. You find a nice promo video here on the slide “accomplishing schooling”. Help us to improve the educational situation in Taha!

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The construction of the school proceeds

Not even half a year has passed, since the beginning of construction in May, but what we have achieved in Taha during this time is simply great. The whole summer the workers were really busy and helped to let our school at record speed. There were only small interruptions because of the rain.
After the mounting of the foundations the floor was filled up, compacted and covered with a concrete layer. Then already the superstructure could be put up. The blocks which were formed on site from concrete during the other works conferred our school soon the appearance of a proper house.
Also, there was steady progress in the works on the toilets. The drainage pit hat to be mantled with concrete and the hole had to be finally filled again. Above of this the floor was laid with the suitable holes, which are absolutely necessary for the typical squat toilet. As a next step the actual toilet house will be placed on top of that.
The progress on the site gives us courage that we can soon achieve our aim of a school in Taha. See for yourself in the gallery.

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The construction starts

It took less than a week, after we received the good news of the funding by the W.P. Schmitz Foundation, and the first excavators and trucks rolled into the otherwise tranquil Taha. Where there was previously green scrubland has been a lot of activity since the beginning of May. It is dug, concrete mixed and bricked.

The outlines of our future school can already be seen from the foundations. Those were raised at record speed, just in time before the beginning of the rainy season. Latter almost postponed the start of the construction work until September, because it is important for the foundations that the ground is dry, so that there is no consequential damage. But we were lucky and the next steps are not dependent on the weather except that a construction break must be taken in the case of rain.

The first stage in the construction of the toilets was just as crucial, because an approximately two meter deep pit had to be dug for it, which of course should not be filled in by the rain. But here too the critical point was exceeded, because the hole had already been bricked up with concrete blocks. The next steps are to continuing the work on the footing of the building, to fill and level the base area with a total of three layers of earth or gravel and to pour the floor plate.

Management of the construction site is entrusted to the local company Modi constructions, which convinced us with a very affordable offer and already has extensive experience in constructing school buildings. The rapid progress in construction is evidence of its efficiency. In addition, an independent engineer who was hired as a supervisor certified that the work was of high quality. So we are confident that the construction will continue to go so smoothly and satisfactorily and will keep you up to date.

 

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2020 – a year in review

With the beginning of the year we had to bear a setback. We had applied for public funding und hoped that we could start the construction of the school with it. Unfortunately we were classified into a minor funding category and so the already planned project couldn’t be realized due to the big total costs.

However we were not put off through that und started to plan a smaller project of which we will be reporting below. Furthermore our partners in Ghana were very successful in negotiating with the Ghanaian education service (GES) and received an acceptance letter which guarantees the take-over of the school by government once it is completed. This is a big success for us since it means that no further costs for running the school will become due for our NGO.

Die Organisatorinnen des Sportfestes übergaben die Spende bei der Schulabschlussfeier

In July we were happy about the great commitment of the students of the Joseph-von-Fraunhofer Gymnasium (JvFG) Cham. Together they ran 1116 km for charity reasons. For each round a private sponsor donated 2€ to our project or the JvFGs partner school in Togo. So that in the end we could thank them for an amazing donation of 365.40€.

We already invested part of this sum in the small project we talked above. Our Ghanaian partners had initiated it already in the beginning of the year. Because according to a study by the GES huge deficits in education can be traced back to lacking reading experience. However the children in Ghana often don’t have the opportunity to read, since they hardly own any books themselves and not every school is equipped with a library. That’s why our partners from the NEA acquired in total 600 reading books from various Ghanaian authors and distributed them to children in four primaries and JHS in the area. But the project is not done yet, because with events like reading competitions we want to further encourage the children to practice reading.

Even though we made a visible impact with this project our main focus lies on our big aim: the establishment of a secondary school. And we approached this in the second half of the year.

Already in August the planning of a new project to build a small part of the school complex began.
This will contain a 42 m² big classroom, an office and a storeroom. Additionally a sanitary station with four separated toilet booths will be constructed. Furthermore the project includes the furnishing with desks and the provision of the relevant schoolbooks, so that directly after the end of the project the education in form of a pre-school can start.

Even though we have reduced this project to the essential elements, it still exceeds our NGOs financial resources. That’s why we began with writing an application for funding to the W.P. Schmitz foundation in September, which supports NGOs in executing projects in unprivileged countries. The application was already submitted to the foundation and should be examined in the beginning of the year.

Simultaneously we wanted to motivate as many donators with our “10for10” campaign to acquire the missing part of the budget of 10,000€. We could raise a lot of attention with a tedious video and reports in the local media, so that we had already collected more than 7,000€ before Christmas. During the Christmas days we received some further generous donations which helped us to reach our goal already before the end of the year. Nevertheless the campaign is still running and we are happy about any donation which will be guaranteed put in our project.

We hereby want to thank all our supporters for the last year. We are looking forward to the year 2020, when according to all projections we will start with the construction and we hope that we accomplish many more great projects to assist the children in the North of Ghana in getting an education of high quality. Thank you very much!

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The well is finished

A first big step could be achieved with our borehole completion. This borehole will provide the students with drinking water once the school is opened. Furthermore it already means an assistance at the work site, because now no water e.g. for the concrete has to be delivered costly.

When we began drilling in November, the excitement was big if we will hit water. But then the reliefing news came: The drilling was a success and the workers actually hit water. In fact they had to dig 100 metres, but nevertheless it was big luck, because thus it saved us the costs and efforts of another drilling. The borehole instantly was mounted, which means, that a pipe was laid and a casing pump was connected. Besides a generator and a polytank with stand will be acquired. In total the costs added up to 6000 EUR, which could be covered up with the generous donations and the successful charity events of the last year.

We are pleased that the building of the school is going forward step by step and we count on further help from your side.

Two workers connecting the pump.

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News from the construction site

First progress can be seen. Building materials could be purchased with a part of the donations. The workers at Ghbalahi moulded about 1000 blocks out of sand and cement. Later on the four blocks, of wich the school contains, will be constructed out of these blocks. Furthermore the ground plot was marked, as you can see on the left picture. Best requirements, this is how it can go on.

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