St. Albans nonprofit seeks $200K to aid Ghana kids

 

The saying goes that it takes a village to raise a child. But in Oshiyie, a village in Ghana, it takes a nonprofit based in St. Albans to build a new school.

Adjoa Esinam Gzifa and Barbara Bryant, who run Future Scholars Inc, are currently working to raise $200,000 to build a school in Oshiyie, a village they have visited several times during the past five years.

So far, they have $30,000 - enough to pay for the foundation - but they want the funding for school in place by the end of the year.
"I'm trying my best," Gzifa, the third vice president of Community Board 12, said last Thursday.
Gzifa and Bryant have been supporting the village's school since a visit there five years ago. The pair have been making annual trips to Africa to bring clothing and supplies to villages for many years, but ever since meeting the schoolchildren and teachers in Oshiyie five years ago, they have focused their efforts on the village.
"We fell in love with the project," said Gzifa, who took on her African name and began wearing traditional African garb after a "naming ceremony" she experienced 10 years ago during her first trip to Ghana.
Five years ago, Oshiyie had an elementary school with six classrooms and 132 students. Their supplies were in terrible condition, Gzifa said, and the school needed more space.
After returning to southeast Queens following their first trip to Oshiyie, Gzifa and Bryant started asking people to sponsor a student. Amazingly, it costs only $50 for a student to attend school in Ghana for an entire year. The pair managed to find 132 sponsors, one for each child.
But according to Gzifa, once word got out that school was free, more and more students started emerging from the woodwork. The next year there were 262 students and the year after that 480. Future Scholars Inc. was also able to increase its fund-raising, bringing in about $10,000 by the third year, which was enough to fund scores of students and provide the teachers, who make about $150 a month in Ghana, with a modest stipend.
Last year, Gzifa was asked by the local superintendent if she and Bryant could help them build a new school that could house junior high school students. The village school currently houses students up to fifth grade. Once they graduate, students face a six-mile commute to junior high school.
"We told him we would try," Gzifa said. "We had no idea how we were going to do it, but we knew we had to get the money."
The fund-raising effort goes on and Gzifa asked anyone interested in contributing to e-mail her at fscholarinc@aol.com.
Reach reporter Craig Giammona by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.

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