It was a drizzly and murky night when Astrid and I made our first visit to the Castle School Newbury last night.The weather did not deter some 45 parents, staff and children from turning up to their school for a fundraiser, specially for ATE.
The Castle School is a special school for children of 16 years and over with a variety of complex learning difficulties. Fee (no surnames here), who is a class teacher at the school, has initiated a link with ATE after hearing Sarah talk about her work through ATE. It was specifically the ATE Special Needs Awareness Programme (SNAP) that resonated with Fee. SNAP is a support group in Lawra, Upper West, Ghana, working to integrate children with special needs into the community, provide opportunities denied to them and to improve access to basic health and education.
So it wasFee’s initiative to support this work and include her students in this so that they became aware thatchildren with special needs live everywhere in the world. So they decided on holding a Curry and Quiz night to raise funds.
The delicious curry was cooked entirely by the students including their own naan bread! Apparently the kitchen had been ringing with the sound of vegetable chopping all day! They were very proud to receive ringing applause from everyone at the end of proceedings.
Astrid and I found the Castle School a very warm and welcoming place. There is a very convivial area near the entrance with round tables leading off the kitchen and I would guess it’s a meeting place for both students and staff alike. As we arrived we were invited for a drink, the bar also being manned by students and then found our assigned table where we sat with two classroom teaching assistants and the Deputy Head, all based at the school on the Love Lane site (where the younger children are educated).
It was a real family night with Fee’s husband John and son Finn running a very amusing, ‘alternative’ and interactive quiz, involving swapped celebrity faces, sounds of musical instruments and identifying films from the endings among other things It was definitely not in the pub quiz genre. Our team, Enterprise, were running a good second until we fell at the last hurdle!!
Astrid and I were very proud to be the representatives of ATE and immensely enjoyed our evening. We send our heartfelt thanks to Fee and her students for putting such great effort into raising nearly £600 for the young people of the SNAP group in Lawra.
You can follow ATE’s work with SNAP on our website at www.ateghana.org/s-n-a-p/. We are all delighted that Jonathan Hall (Astrid’s husband) who is an artist living in Ramsbury has already visited Lawra with the intention of implementing a programme of creative activities with the children of SNAP. Earlier in the year he visited the Castle School receiving both a warm welcome and inspiration for his future work.
Written by Mair Reed