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Kuapa Kids Community Project

Ghana school online

The junior school that delivers the webcasts for Pa Pa Paa LIVE! is located in the Ashanti region of Ghana and is called Great Fammis School. Great Fammis School has around 300 students and is based in Akumadan, a community approximately 90km north of Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana and the headquarters of the Kuapa Kokoo Fairtrade cocoa cooperative. The area has a strong cocoa producing heritage, though tomato farming is also an important crop in this area and many of the children at the school are from tomato farming families. The school was built using Fairtrade premium money from sales of Fairtrade cocoa in memory of the founder of Kuapa Kokoo, Nana Frimpong Abrebrese, who came from Akumadan.

Kuapa Kids from Great Fammis School talking to children in the UK

Kuapa Kids Community Project

Great Fammis School is part of a broader programme of educational work that the partners in this project have facilitated since 2000. This includes funding a full time member of staff in Ghana to work with a range of Kuapa Kokoo supported schools and students.

The schools in Ghana that we work with struggle to maintain high educational standards because they serve poor, rural cocoa-growing communities. The schools are remote, with few facilities like electricity or running water, so it is difficult to find and retain teachers. Although primary school education is free in Ghana, families still have to buy uniforms and school materials such as pens, pencils, books and chalk.

Kuapa Kids from Akumadan

The Kuapa Kids Community Project has delivered extra classes and materials to the schools. Activities like the Kuapa Kids Camps bring children together for three days – many of them leaving their villages for the first time and mixing with children from other schools – to learn about Fairtrade, the global chocolate supply chain, and issues such as nutrition, health and girls' education.

These activities have also supported Fairtrade education and awareness raising in the UK. In particular, two teenage boys from Kuapa Kokoo communities in Ghana came to the UK in 2006 to speak to young people at three 'Cocoa Summits', working with them to create a jointly owned 'Chocolate Challenge Manifesto' and to deliver it to industry and government. The Kuapa Kids Community Project regularly contributes stories, pictures and footage for projects such as the Dubble online community and the Pa Pa Paa teaching resources.

If you would like to make a donation to the Kuapa Kids Community Project, you can do so here. But the best way for you to support it is to sign up to Pa Pa Paa LIVE! and encourage other schools to do the same!