Raymond Sappor is a smiling, gently spoken, 28 year old teacher of Social Studies and Religious Moral Education at Karbo Junior High School (JHS). He was born and raised in Lawra, attended Karbo JHS himself when he was younger and understands the effects of poverty among the local community. He began volunteering at the school 4 years ago, before being officially appointed in September 2012. Sitting in the calm, airy staff room at Karbo JHS, Raymond describes how Action Through Enterprise (ATE) recently came to work with the school. “Habib and Sarah started working at Karbo Primary School and saw the need to extend the help to those pupils coming through from the primary to the JHS”. Raymond explains that once the school feeding program began in January 2015, other children also started coming to school as “this is a rural area and it is not easy to get three meals a day”.
Due to the feeding program, Raymond feels there has been an increase in attendance at the JHS as well as the noticeable improvement in learning and attainment. “The students were often tired and hungry and their concentration levels in class were low but now since the program is in process, the way they are able to concentrate is better and their performance is improving. Now they know they will eat and can continue with their studies”.
Raymond says it is challenging for children being brought up in this area. They sometimes don’t have the ambition to achieve in school or beyond because of the financial challenges their parents encounter. “When the children come to school, sometimes we can see from their faces they have problems to bear. They don’t always take breakfast before coming to school, so we as teachers are glad of ATE’s support in order to raise these children to have a better future”. The parents and the wider community also welcome the program. Raymond says that they saw that what ATE was going to do would benefit their children, so the PTA Chairman and all the parents got involved in building the kitchen for the school feeding program to begin.
Raymond also admits that as an unpaid student teacher, the ATE school feeding program also helps teachers to get something for lunch. In this way he is grateful to ATE that he can continue to use his own knowledge and talent to help the people in his community.
By Leela Shanti and Diedong Eric