TULLOW-SABRE TRUST LOWER PRIMARY SCHOOL PROJECT INAUGURED AT AYENSUDO

Thanks to the three British organizations Tullow Ghana Limited, Sabre Trust and Arup Engineering, a three-classroom block has been constructed for an Islamic School Kindergarten for the people of Ayensudo in the Central Region.

David Lawrie, the Regional Business Manager of Tullow Oil, expressed his pride to see this ambitious and economic project come into an end for the inauguration of the school.

For many years, the children of Ayensudo were packed in a shift classroom system that often exposed them to the vagaries of the weather and exposed their life to danger because of the unstable structure. Therefore the collaborating organizations, and among them Tullow Ghana Limited, an organization which supports and provides education solutions in Ghana, have decided to provide a more habitable environment for the children in order that they learn properly.

Sabre Trust, a British Non-Governmental Organization in partnership with ARUP (UK), implemented the project, which was responsible for the engineering and designing. They tried together to find the cheapest and more efficient way to build a durable school, by using local materials as bamboo and soil provided by the community. Indeed, all the bricks in the building have been made using earth from the village and mixed with sand, portland cement and pozzolana. Likewise, bamboo from Dwabor has been used to construct the windows, doors and internal ceiling finish of the classrooms, and between the roof covering and the internal ceiling finish with split bamboo painted white there are sacks made from nylon mesh which have been filled with the fibre from coconut shells. " The coconut fibre acts as an acoustic damper to reduce the noise of the rain impact on the roof and also provides thermal insulation from the metal roof which reduces the radiation from the hot roof into the classroom and keeps it cooler ", explained Joseph Stables,  Director of Arup Engineering.

 A hardwood, Dahoma, has been also used to construct the roof structure and the window frames. "Dahoma is locally sourced and is very dense which makes it difficult for termites to eat it, " Joseph Stables explained, " For this reason, it will have require less maintenance ". One other economic measure has been finding to avoid building classrooms from concrete, which is not very good for the environment because of the energy required to produce the cement inside concrete. “We have replaced one third of the Portland cement with Pozzolana, which is produced in Ghana from clay and palm kernels ", Joseph Stables said. In a conclusion, each classroom has a rainwater tank attached to the gutters to collect rainwater that can be used for hand washing, cooking, cleaning and even drinking. Indeed the tanks are designed so that when it rains, the first rush of water that arrives with the dirt from the roof is drained away in order that the rest of the water entering the tanks is clean. “Each tank can hold 2,000litres of water and are constructed out of durable locally available heavy-duty plastic ", David Lawrie (Tullow Oil) added. Moreover, a series of French drains have been designed to collect and control storm water runoff. “The divert runoff from the slopes behind the site running into buildings, and return it to the groundwater ", Joseph Stables explained, “Furthermore the overflow from rainwater harvesting tanks are connected into them ".

Inside of the school built with local material

As a result, this economic, but sophisticated project cost only $100,000 and has a capacity to seat 180 pupils in KG1, KG2, Nursery, a store room, office and an attached toilet.

Tullow organization expressed their relief to hand over the project without being burdened to look back and worry about the issue of the maintenance “because the local involvement from the onset has ensured the availability of knowledge to take care of that ", David Lawrie said, " Additionally, the overwhelming support and endorsement received from the Ministry of Education offers further confidence in the sustainability of the school over the long term ", he said. In addition, as the technology deployed in this Project is highly replicable in district and regions across the country, Tullow hopes that will answer government's quest to provide suitable infrastructure for schools, which the country need.