120 Pupils Out Of School

Following the demolition exercise at Mensah Guinea, a slum behind the Centre for National Culture in Accra, the fate of 120 pupils living in the area hangs in the balance, as their school structure was also pulled down. The Shepherd Heart Kindergarten School, a private institution also served as a shelter for some of the street children in the vicinity who attended the school. During a visit to the site by the Daily Graphic, many of the children who attended the school, were seen playing and loitering around the demolished site and the beach, which is very close to the area. Tables, chairs and teaching boards belonging to the school had been packed close to a church, which had not been demolished. The exercise A task force of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) demolished shops and illegal structures at the Mensah Guinea slum last week, rendering hundreds of residents there homeless. According to city authorities, the exercise, which had been supervised by the police, was to curtail insanitary conditions in the area and other places which were major contributory factors to the recent outbreak of cholera in the capital. Mensah Guinea has a population of about 3,000, comprising Ghanaians, Liberians, Nigerians, Senegalese and Ivorians. Headmistress worried The Headmistress of the Shepherd Heart School, Mrs Mary Asamoah, told the Daily Graphic that the building had been pulled down on Friday, September 5, 2014 and since then the children had not been to school. �The children keep asking me where they are going to have classes any time I come around but I do not give them any good answer, since I do not have a place for them yet. �What is even more worrying is that most of these children sleep at the beach with their parents, while others whose parents are nowhere to be found also join them,� she stated. She said some of the parents had pleaded with and asked her to take their children with her, so that she could get them a safe place to sleep, since she was not a resident of the area. �I cannot take care of all the 120 children, but I need a place for them to sleep and also continue with the school because we cannot leave these children just like that,� she said. Parents� headache Mrs Asamoah explained that the school was a voluntary venture being run in a partnership arrangement between her and a church known as the Arts Centre Community Church to support the children in the vicinity and street children who needed formal education. After completing kindergarten, she said, the pupils from the school were transferred to public schools, with support from the school. Considering the fact that they had lost their livelihood and accommodation, the parents of some of the pupils of the Shepherd School said they did not know what to do with their children because they did not even have places to sleep, not to mention the money to take the pupils to new schools.