Report to donors (May 2024)

May 27, 2024

Turbo Ghana started its work in 2018, and was formally constituted and registered with the Charities Commission in 2020. This report to donors details the work we have done in the period May 2023 - May 2024, and our plans for the following year.

Our achievements during 2023/24

School and teacher accommodation at Kontonho. Our biggest project this year has been the three-room school (left) and three-room teacher accommodation (right) in a small community called Kontonho. At the time of writing in June 2024, the two buildings are complete, except for tiling, painting and furniture, and the school is expected to open in August. The school will serve 90 kindergarten and primary school children, who currently have to walk two hours to go to school. The teacher accommodation is needed because the community is too remote for teachers to commute daily. The village has no electricity or water, but we will install solar panels in the teacher accommodation to allow night-time lighting and phone charging. The third photo shows the two buildings together, and the toilet block (not quite finished) in the background between them.
Total spent: £20,098 in FY 2023/24 plus £4,538 in FY 2024/25 so far (the buildings are complete, but painting, furnishing and some fittings remain to be done, so some further costs will be incurred in FY 2024/25).

Three boreholes: Atonobi, and Anyankamamu and Kontonho. Fetching and consuming water from rivers and streams is laboursome and dangerous. We built three boreholes in three communities, transforming the lives of the people that live there. The borehole in Atonobi serves 150 people; the one in Anyanhamamu serves 200 people; Kontonho serves 150. Building boreholes probably delivers our impact per pound. The water is not free, though; borehole pumps go wrong, and need maintenance a few times per year. So the community collects money for the water and uses it to fund the borehole repairs.
Total spent in FY 2023/24: £2,802 (Atonobi) and £4,161 (Anyankamamu and Kontonho), totalling £6,963. These projects are now finished.

Apprenticeship scheme. Four women have started three-year apprenticeships funded by Turbo Ghana. They are working with dressmakers in Nsuta, and now have the possibility of building better lives for themselves by learning a skill that is much valued in Ghana.
Total spent in 2023/24: £483 (the apprenticeship scheme began on 1 April, so only tiny costs were incurred in 2023/24; most of the costs will be incurred in 2024/25 and beyond).

Business starter. We funded the start-up costs for a sheep rearing business (the costs included fencing, veterinary fees, and the initial sheep). The business will be self-sustaining and give a livelihood to the elderly woman that runs it with her son.
Total spent in FY 2023/24: £1,920. (This particular project is finished, but we will expand this scheme in future years.)

School costs support. Senior high school is free in Ghana, but a condition of admission is that students buy a range of items, including a mattress, clothing items, shoes, and other equipment. The cost of these items often prevents able children from attending. We funded the school items cost for two children (male and female) in 2023/4 and we have selected two more (m+f) for 2024/5. We will expand this scheme. We have also funded some university fees and university accommodation costs for a project manager working with us that wants to pursue a career in accountancy.
Total spent in FY 2023/24: £535. (We will expand this scheme in future years.)

Furniture for junior school in Aframano. We equipped a thriving school with decent furniture, because what furniture they had was falling apart.
Total spent in 2023/24: £2,865.

Full details about all these projects with photos can be found on our website.

Project monitoring

Visits by trustees. Mark visited twice during the year, once in December 2023 and again in February 2024, for two weeks each time. He visited all our historic and current projects, and planned new ones. He met apprenticeship candidates, community members, and local government officials, as well as service providers such as builders, carpenters, roofers, borehole drillers and pump installers. Details and photos of these visits are on our website (click Blog).

Project manager. We are very lucky to have Kwasi Alare managing all our projects. Kwasi was born in Aframano; at the age of 23 was elected “assembly member” (local council representative) for his community. He served three terms of four years each. He stood down when his university studies and work with Turbo Ghana (together with farming, which is everyone’s occupation in this area) grew to take all his time. Kwasi has been responsible for all our building projects (two schools, each with teacher accommodation, and three boreholes). He has selected and managed all the contractors, and helped us keep in touch with the communities we have served.

Friends and family. By now we know many people in our communities, including Vivian (host), Stephen (driver), Acheampong (who has taken many photos for our website), John and Thomas (local authority executives), Samuel and Alex (teachers in Nsuta). They all help us by monitoring projects and recommending suppliers and contractors.

Our plans for 2024/25

We have ambitious plans for 2024/25. The six new projects listed below total about £70,000. We will begin the projects as soon as funds allow, and we will visit in November 2024 and February 2025 to monitor progress. We adopted the projects after holding about 12 meetings with community members in several different villages. The projects will improve the lives over 4000 people.

Apprenticeship scheme (excluding solar). As well as continuing to support our four existing apprentices, we aim to expand the scheme up to 10 individuals, but only if we have good candidate apprentices and good, proven hosts. We will continue to search for solar power apprentices as a separate project.

Completing a school building in PSK. We want to help a community of 1500 finish a school-building project that it started using its own funds, but ran out of money.

Toilets in Bunuso. We want to build a public toilet in a large village of 3600 people that has no toilets at all. People in that village currently have to use the bush for their daily needs.

Teacher accommodation in Anyankamamu. We want to build teacher accommodation at an inaccessible school, to improve its prospects of attracting good teachers.

Building back better the latrines in Aframano. We will build latrines for some newly established households, and rebuild some previously-build ones that got destroyed by exceptional rains, in Aframano.

Solar power apprenticeship. We adopted this project a year ago, to address the needs of young people to find meaningful and prosperous careers, and to bring clean and renewable electricity to communities that have no electricity at all. We didn’t manage to find a suitable apprentice during 2023/4, but we will continue trying in 2024/5.

Other ongoing projects. We will continue our education support project, and commence new business-starter projects.

Full details about all these projects with photos can be found on our website – see current projects.