NEW DEBISO, Ghana — A girl knelt to show her 4-year-old sister how to boil sand and water in two discarded Costa sardine tins over a small charcoal fire. 

Another girl nearby mashed plantain with a stick, practicing how to make fufu — a Ghanaian culinary staple of pounded cassava, yam and plantain. 

Across the dirt road, volunteers from the village and the Bia Lamplighter College of Education — which is associated with Churches of Christ — mixed bags of cement with water. 

The material would form the foundation for the first girls’ boarding school for primary education in a region known as the Bia West District, according to Lamplighter founder Augustine Tawiah. 

The nearest alternative is 11 hours away in the capital city of Accra. 

Tawiah, who is also a Ghanaian parliamentary member for Bia West, is acutely aware of the educational challenges girls face in the rural regions. 

He grew up just a few miles down the road in Sefwi Asuopiri, a village so small that it can barely be located on a map. 

His parents, both farmers, never sent his sister to school. 

“I’ve been through these villages, trying to start churches, trying to campaign to be elected, and I’ve come across these young ladies,” said Tawiah, who attends Lamplighter’s campus Church of Christ in Sefwi Debiso and the Knutsford University Church of Christ when in Accra. 

“They don’t have any future,” he added. “They have sixth grade educations, ninth grade educations. They are going to be farmers condemned to this life to have many children. And what is the future of these children?” 

To address these concerns, he and his wife, Anita Lynn, founded the Lamplighter Community Academy, a Christian school for K-6 students, in 2006. The couple  established the college 10 years later to allow students — who may pursue secondary education elsewhere — a seamless transition into higher education. 

Yet the challenges with girls’ education persisted. 

In rural households with multiple children, most parents can only financially support the education of one or two of their children. Often, they choose boys. 

“Girls are basically the ones who do the chores around the house,” said Lynn Tawiah, an American who has a doctorate in education from Regent University in Virginia and a master’s in education from the University of Memphis. “And boys generally go to school.”

Disparities in education

The main determining factors that create educational disparities in this West African nation are poverty, gender and distance to school, according to UNICEF. 

Faustine Delely knows all three intimately. 

Delely, a recent education graduate who completed her teaching practicum at the Lamplighter college, sacrificed for her education. 

Waking up at 5 a.m. to make sure she arrived on time, the Debiso Church of Christ member walked two hours to school every morning.

She was determined to complete school for one simple reason. 

“I saw my parents suffer,” Delely said. 

Education was her opportunity to avoid a life of poverty. But like many in rural areas, she faced financial difficulties.

To convince her parents to fund her education, Delely carried goods — usually cured fish — with her every morning to sell on the streets after school. 

“I knew I had to help my mother to get to where I wanted to go,” she said. “There are some parents who, if you don’t help, there is no way they will waste resources on you.”

While gender disparities in education have improved since the 1990s, retention rates often decrease among female junior high and high school students, UNICEF reported in 2020. 

This is, in part, due to the expectation that girls should take on more responsibilities around the home with their siblings — or their own children. 

“In the rural communities, they need to be at home,” Lynn Tawiah said. “And they’re, of course, dealing with puberty, the interest in young men. Maybe they get pregnant.”

A girl’s place

Augustine Tawiah’s great niece is one such example.

Sarah Mensah was 17 when she got pregnant with her son, Flavio, now 12. 

“It was not easy,” said Mensah, now a licensed nurse. “At first, I had no hope. But my mom encouraged me and said that when I gave birth, she would take care of my child, so I could go back to school.”

Her mother, who worked as a teacher, dreamed of being a nurse. Her grandmother, who never attended school, dreamed of receiving an education. Mensah had the opportunity to fulfill both dreams. 

But her son’s birth strained the household’s finances. 

The man who impregnated her refused to provide any monetary support. Rumors that Mensah’s father attempted to sell her spread between the neighbors. 

“People said, ‘Even though you went to school, you still came back and gave birth. Look at your case. There is no need for even going to school,’” Mensah recalled. 

Eventually, her family raised the cost of tuition — 500 cedis or about $33 — necessary for Mensah to return to school. 

But not all girls are so fortunate. 

Adam Kusi, a chaplain at J.A. Kufuor Senior High School in Kumasi, has worked with multiple pregnant students since joining the school’s staff in 2021. 

“In places like Kumasi, because it is more of a metropolitan area, we don’t have those cultural issues affecting education,” said Kusi, who attends the Oforikrom Church of Christ. “But when you travel up north, in some areas people still hold on to their belief that the place of girls in society is in the kitchen. And most of the people who even have the resources to sponsor education would rather it be one of their male children than a girl child.”

The full image of Christ

Yet in this rural village, people packed into the Church of Pentecost building for a meeting formally introducing the girls’ boarding school project. 

Elders dressed in their traditional regalia sat in front of the community, listening to Augustine Tawiah’s proposal. Customs agents in the pews warned the contractors of prosecution if they stole materials or funds. Women standing in the back tended to fussy children. 

The entire project could be built in five months if funded by private donors, Augustine Tawiah said. 

But with limited government funds available for private school partnerships with the state, construction often grinds to a halt — sometimes for years.

The total project will cost about 11,911,640 cedi or $800,000. The construction of the dormitory and school facilities will cost a total of $380,000, and the remaining $420,000 will cover utilities, transportation and a medical clinic that will serve both the school and community.

The school will specialize in STEM, which comprises fields where girls historically have been underrepresented in Ghana. Classes and school clubs will focus on science, technology, engineering and math. 

Addressing the village, Augustine Tawiah spoke on the importance of girls’ education. 

“We need to really let them grow into the full image of Christ without being hindered,” he said. “We are not in a Muslim country, where girls are forced not to go to school. If they want to go to school, we want to create an atmosphere that is very open, that is conducive for them to go without any hindrance.”

When complete, the school will house 315 students. 

Augustine Tawiah has a master’s and doctoral degree in educational leadership and policy from the University of Memphis, as well as degrees from Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., and the Harding School of Theology in Memphis, Tenn.

He intends to hire teachers and staff who are members of Churches of Christ, some who — like Delely — may have graduated from the Lamplighter college only four miles down the road. 

The boarding school will not just be a place of education — it will also offer safety. 

“I envision girls from all over, not just from the immediate area, who are just happy and really learning — actually reaching their potential,” Lynn Tawiah said. “Not worried about anything around them, not being at risk of molestation, or even at risk of their education being halted because they have to run home and do chores every other day.”

But Augustine Tawiah imagines more than the positive short-term outcomes. He hopes for future generations of women serving in government, scientific research and law. 

“We are given the opportunity to have dominion over the world,” Augustine Tawiah said, referencing Genesis 1:26. “And women, as I continuously say, have a big say in the shape and twist of our worlds. 

“If you educate a man, you educate one person,” he added, citing an African proverb. “If you educate a woman, you educate a whole nation.”

This piece is republished with permission from The Christian Chronicle. 

Audrey Jackson, a 2021 journalism graduate of Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, is The Christian Chronicle’s managing editor.