GHANA was the destination for University students with the aimin of completing a momentous challenge – building a school.

The students built the school in Nsuta, a small town and were away from March 30 until April 18 and took part in tasks such as painting, planting, brick work and woodwork in order to build the school. The trip also involved engaging in rural Ghanaian living with the locals; bathing from water from the well and using a hole in the ground as a toilet. Keval Parshotam, a second year Exercise Science, Health and Rehabilitation student, is the Overseas Project Officer for the Raising and Giving team at the University.

Keval said the experience provided him with a “greater understanding of the human race’s duties to other members of our people who are not as fortunate as ourselves.” He said the trip has also made him think twice about complaining. The children whom the students built the school for were keen to help out. Keval explained how they, some as young as five years old, carried buckets of sand on their heads for over four hundred metres in the boiling heat when the students were cement laying.

He said “I thought I’d try it and I was struggling; I had to give up after my third trip.” The children however, were doing this task for two hours.The result of the trip means these children get to have a real education, something that many of us easily take for granted. Keval said “As a group, we came together with kindred spirits and put our best into building the school; the results were amazing.”

Mollie Perella