Education for Street Kids – Children of God School

My name is Hassan Shaibu. I’m living in Ghana, where I found a home after fleeing from factional violence in Cameroon. I’m a post-graduate university student, an HIV peer educator, a professional dancer, and an activist supporting marginalised and vulnerable communities in West Africa.

To make ends meet, I was working in a small hotel which was a favorite of overseas volunteers needing a break from their community development, rights and justice work they do around Ghana for the American, British and other volunteer organisations and charities.

On the streets outside the guesthouse, every day I noticed groups of kids in dirty and ragged clothes, always on the streets asking for small jobs for some small coins - never begging, just asking for some work. I got to know them, I heard their stories, and I knew that they were missing out on schooling because some were homeless, some orphaned, but they were all good kids just trying to survive.

I started teaching them to dance, to keep alive our dances and cultures, and as something to give them hope and something that could belong to them.

This led me to discover two wonderful brothers, Koffi and Cujoe Adaletey, former street kids themselves, who believe that education defeats poverty and poverty of opportunity. Koffi and Cujoe managed to survive, found the opportunities for their own self-education, and went on to dedicate themselves to giving that same opportunity to other street kids in Ghana’s capital, Accra.

They founded a school – the Children of God Community School – to serve the street kids of Accra’s Adenta neighborhood. They found volunteer qualified teachers and operate out of a partially built building. They deliver not only the national curriculum, but they make sure the children have a healthy meal each day, they give and teach love and self care, and they make sure the kids they are educating are safe and healthy, and can just be kids for a few hours every day. The school survives on donations and kindness. Their goal is to build a basic, safe and secure school to replace the current rented building, and to be able to continue to provide free education to these children.

I met Koffi and Cujoe through dance and I teach dance at the Children of God Community School whenever I can. The children there are smart, cute, tough and can be the future of Ghana and of Africa if only they have the chance. But that chance depends on me and on you.

In a few weeks I will celebrate my 41^st birthday. I dreamed about the presents I wanted for myself until I realized that the best gift I could have is to see the street kids in Adenta safe, healthy and getting an education.

So please join me in offering whatever small amount you can give. Every coin you donate will go in full to the Children of God School to support this amazing project, and these wonderful children. Making sure these kids are not lost to gangs, to crime, to poverty – that will be the best birthday gift to me and to the world.