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on Alison Helm (Ghana), 20/Oct/2011 15:37, 34 days ago
Schools in partnership across the globe . . . .This week has seen the start of the first Ghana-Plaistow partnership with children from year 6 at Curwen Primary school writing their first letters to some girls from Binaba Junior High School. The girls are part of an after-school sports/literacy programme designed to improve their reading and writing skills, as well as encouraging them to participate in more sport.Here are the Ghanaian girls sharing their ideas for their first letter. They were all very keen to have a go at typing, as although they have heard about computers and know the names of the parts, most had never had an opportunity to touch one before.Here are the year 6 Curwen writers (posing in their new classroom and playground).The girls were very keen to use the camera to take photographs of themselves, their teacher and me! They all cracked up laughing when they looked back at the photos - it made me think that they possibly did not know what they looked like, or certainly spent less time looking in mirrors compared to many of us in the UK!Mr Moses, the deputy head teacher, was also very keen to learn about the computer and how we could send the letter and photographs so quickly (i.e. by email).It is interesting to think how much we now rely on email to pass information quickly where as in Ghana, even business/work information is often still passed by written letters and then delivered on motorbikes. This week I helped a lady in the office save an Excel spreadsheet onto a disc which she then put into an envelope and went to post it to Accra (the capital city). When she came back from the post office, I introduced her to the 'world of email' and showed her how much quicker it is to send information this way.As it was market day lots of the girls had to miss the session, or came late, as they were expected to go and help their mothers selling things. This outside space is used as the hall, assembly space, playground and car park.Everyday children are selected to sweep and clean this space -a job they all seem to take great pride in.After we had finished our first letter we all headed to the market so the girls could buy some shoes to be able to play football and volleyball in. They enjoyed this greatly and it made me laugh that obviously all women just love to shop, wherever they are in the world!!!Hopefully this will be the first of  many letter exchanges as the girls loved writing for a real purpose and finding out information about children in the UK.Hoping you are all well and it isn't too cold -(although I can't even imagine what 'too cold' might feel like right now!)Ali xx