Real life in Ghana

By drawing on multi-media extracts from Ghanaian children’s diaries, UK pupils will discover everything from their daily routines, their family make-up through to the games that they play

Background:
Ghana, situated in West Africa, gained independence from the UK in 1957. It is the world’s second largest producer of cocoa, however nearly half the population lives below the poverty line. One of most crucial issues facing children is lack of access to education, with over 40% of all children unable to attend primary school. Despite these dramatic statistics there are many similarities to be found between life of children in the UK and Ghana.
 
Based on the original project ‘Ghana Diaries’ which linked schools in the UK and Ghana to share their life experiences with each other, these new lesson-plans have been designed to bring the wealth of information collected from this into the classrooms of pupils across the UK.

About Plan:
Plan has programmes in 46 countries and is committed to supporting communities to create and administer their own solutions for improving lives. Children are at the centre of everything we do, so play an essential part in the process of planning and implementing projects within their communities.

In Ghana this means that children are helping to spread key education messages between their peers about issues such as hygiene and HIV and Aids. They also play an active role in deciding how their new education facilities are built and run.

Through education resources such as this one Plan UK aims to help young people in the UK gain not only a better understanding of the world that they live in, but also to inspire them to play an active part in making it a fairer place.

Resource information

‘Real life in Ghana’ includes:
- 4 Key Stage 1 cross-curricular lesson plans with clearly stated curriculum links.
- 4 accompanying activity sheets (photocopiable)
- Video clips of Ghanaian playground games
- Related photos (with access to a bank of over 100 others through website)