Posted for Ayensudo Sustainable KG, Newsletter Items
Newsletter: Ayensudo KG Update
Ten months in the building and we are extremely happy to announce that our sustainable kindergarten complex at Ayensudo is alive and well and open! Not only that, it looks fantastic. Over the course of 2011 we have worked tirelessly with the Ayensudo community, our technical partners Arup and Davis Langdon, project sponsors Tullow Ghana Ltd and Ghana International Bank, project stakeholders the Ghana Education Service, KEEA Municipal Assembly and various other private donors, to achieve what is undoubtedly our most impressive project to date. Three purpose designed classrooms, outdoor play areas, a designated office and a rain water harvesting system all contribute to what has been hailed as one of the “outstanding models” for kindergarten education “not just in Ghana but for the whole of Africa”.
Throughout the process we have worked with members of the community and trained up the local workforce in new building techniques, championed the use of locally available sustainable materials and sought to build a better, greener, stronger and more sustainable solution to kindergarten infrastructure. We feel that this method, in conjunction with the recipient community through an approach that constantly reiterates local ownership of the project and the finished product, is the most sustainable approach to development. It offers not only years of great education from within the school itself, but a huge amount of local inspiration, vocational training, respect and reward for all those involved and associated with the project. Put simply the project becomes greater than its parts, a model of fantastic proportion in both a literal and figurative sense.
We took the opportunity over the course of the project to train up Sabre’s very own construction engineer, Lawrence Mensah. Under the leadership of Joe Stables (Arup), Lawrence is now in a position to be able to head up our next sustainable kindergarten build, scheduled to begin in early 2012. This is a hugely exciting development and means that in moving forward we are able to operate all aspects of our infrastructure building project management in-house. Lawrence will begin by overseeing the construction of the toilet block, store room and kitchen at Ayensudo over the next couple of months.
Arup have once again helped out to an extraordinary degree in our vision for this project. Without their commitment and dedicated team, the Ayensudo project would have been a very different story. As it stands, and thanks in no small part to Jo da Silva, Hayley Gryc and Joseph Stables and the mass of people they surround themselves with, we are delighted to present to the community, and Ghana, this very accomplished project that we hope will become the blueprint for future kindergarten schools throughout Ghana, if not further afield as well.
Sabre is undeniably proud of its achievements and the efforts of everyone who was involved in this landmark project. The next phase is to ensure the quality of the teaching is as spectacular as the building itself, a challenge we aim to overcome with as much vigour and passion as we have shown in our track record to date. If 2011 has been anything to go by, 2012 looks set to bring with it very exciting times indeed.
