Freeworld International

Freeworld International (FI) is a non-governmental organisation based in Ejisu in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The organisation was formed to fight against diseases, poverty, illiteracy and social injustice. Our main areas of concentration are: Education, Health, Agriculture, Water and Sanitation, Women and Youth Empowerment, Environment and affordable housing. FI is a member of The Think Global Institute Freeworld International » Listings | The ThinkGlobal Institute.

Our vision:

A world in which people are free from diseases, poverty, illiteracy, social injustice and other social challenges.

Our mission:

To improve the quality of life in vulnerable communities through the design and implementation of impactful and sustainable programs for youth, women, and children.

The organisation was formed in March 2012 but the official registration took place in July, 2012 to embark on a long-term underprivileged community projects to help the country to be at liberty from diseases, poverty, illiteracy and social injustice which serves as key areas for development paradigms across the globe. Over the last 10 years, Freeworld has been working relentlessly to bring about qualitative behavioural change and impacted the lives of over one million people. The organisation’s bottom-up approach to inclusive development has changed the lives of many and has led to sustainable development.

Our approaches include the following:

• An understanding of community needs on the ground and informed perspective that offers practical project possibilities
• Utilize a community-based approach, focusing on solutions proposed directly by the community and addressing challenges faced by the community at large. Further, the project will evolve through continuous engagement with the community
• Offer a full spectrum of livelihood solutions such as childhood, vocational, and technical training, agricultural expertise, financial literacy, business acumen, and other enterprise development skills combined with community engagement.
• Plan to integrate the learning from other complementary projects, focus on geographies where demand and need are greatest, and implement where there is no duplication with other ongoing projects
• Seek to provide continuous vocational and enterprise development support, as opposed to short-term, intermittent training with limited follow-through.

Core Values

Focus: We work to achieve the expectations of our target groups.

Results-Oriented: We concentrate on measurable outcomes.

Excellence: We strive to provide high-quality content and strategies, basing our insights on experience, knowledge and data."

Sustainability: We build effective programs and change behavior with lasting impacts for individuals, families and communities.

Team work: We support each other and make choices that put team before individual performance.

Mutual Respect: We treat each other with respect and dignity

Areas of operation: Vulnerable communities in Ghana.

Target groups:

·         Vulnerable Children (Children in marginalized communities, children without adequate parental care, orphans, street children, school drop-outs, children living with disability, etc.)

·         Vulnerable Youth (18-35 years including youth with disability, out-of-school youth, unemployed youth, in-school youth in marginalized communities, etc.)

·         Vulnerable Women (36-60 years, including those living with disability)

Reporting to the Council, the Executive Director has overall strategic and operational responsibility for FI staff, programs, and execution of its mission. The Executive Director is responsible for overseeing the administration, programs, and implementation of the mission of the organization. Other key duties include developing strategic partnerships, fundraising, marketing, and communications. Specifically, he is responsible for:

• Overseeing the day-to-day activities of the organisation.
• Participating in developing a strategic plan of the organisation and overseeing its implementation.
• Fostering effective teamwork in the organisation and creation of an enabling environment for creativity and innovation among the staff.
• Acting as the spokesperson for the organization and its programs.
• Drafting policies for the approval of the Council and preparing procedures to implement the organizational policies, reviewing existing policies on an annual basis and recommending changes to the Council as appropriate.
• Overseeing the planning, implementation, and evaluation of the organization's programs.
• Overseeing all financial aspects of the organization, including the development of, and adherence to the annual budget, including ensuring that sound bookkeeping and accounting procedures are followed.
• Researching funding sources, overseeing the development of fundraising plans, and writing funding proposals to increase the revenue of the organization

Education remains a key priority of Freeworld International. The Team Lead served as Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager for a UK-Based Charity on an early childhood program. Therefore, he understands the importance of quality education for children and adolescents in Ghana.

Furthermore, Education remains a key priority of Freeworld International. It is one of the strategic pillars of the organisation. Therefore, The Executive Director and the rest of the Senior Level Staff will be able to dedicate 3-4 hours per week for the 12 week LEAP Project Sprint.

The proposed solution directly addresses the challenges of access, quality and assessment practices in nursery and kindergarten education in Ghana.

Early childhood years represent a crucial window for development, as it is during these early years that children form the basis for future learning. There is growing evidence that investments in early childhood, especially, Nursery and Kindergarten have high returns, and that missed opportunities to promote early childhood development can lead to lasting deficits in children’s educational attainment and future wellbeing.

However, the Nursery and Kindergarten Levels face significant challenges of access, quality and performance measurement:

• Over 30 percent of teachers employed to teach at the nursery and kindergarten level in Ghana do not have the requisite training to be in the classroom (iWatch Africa Assessment, 2016).
• Nursery Education has been left in the hands of the Private Sector Education Providers, who are under resourced and for that reason do not employ trained teachers. Many have just primary education.
• Learning is delivered through a rote-based methodology, which is far less effective than the active and play-based methodology advocated by Ghana Education Service.
• Despite being prohibited by Ministry of Education directives and National Child Friendly School Standards, corporal punishment and threatening language are highly prevalent in Nursery and Kindergarten classrooms and have a very damaging effect on children’s development and learning.
• There are only sufficient resources for one book between three children (MoE EMIS 2013) and where these resources do exist, they typically lack cultural context or are expensive and difficult to acquire.
• Nursery and Kindergarten classrooms are often over-crowded with an average of 61 pupils per class (MoE EMIS 2013), and suffer from issues of over- & under-age pupils, with classes being held under trees or in dilapidated buildings with inappropriate and insufficient furniture.
• The Early Childhood teaching profession continues to suffer from stigmatisation, which portrays Nursery and KG teachers as the least skilled, and the early years as less important than primary and secondary schooling, this stigmatisation also afflicts parents, who do not appreciate the importance of Nursery and KG and the value of enrolling their children early in school.

There is an urgent need to improve nursery and kindergarten education in Ghana because numerous research studies and much anecdotal evidence have revealed that most Ghanaian children graduating from KG2 are far short of having attained the expected knowledge and skills required for a smooth transition into primary school.

The proposed project seeks transform the delivery of Nursery and Kindergarten education by:

• Setting up circuit model practice classroom in Ejisu Municipal to demonstrate an exemplary nursery and kindergarten classrooms to neighboring schools in the Municipality. This classroom will be used to train nursery and kindergarten teachers, head teachers and Ghana Education Service Officers and will have practical classroom learning resources packs made from local resources.
• Using the circuit model practice classrooms, the project will train nursery and kindergarten teachers on child centered teaching pedagogical skills and provide them with resources to set up their own classrooms in their schools.
• Purchase solar powered tablets and upload all recommended Ghana Education Service recommended textbooks on it to facilitate classroom teaching and learning.
• Intensive classroom coaching to assist teacher to implement the trained practices.
• Design and implement an activity-based curriculum for nursery and kindergarten education with certification from the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.
• Construct new early childhood classrooms in rural and hard-to-reach areas as well as upgrade dilapidated nursey and kindergarten classrooms.
• Train teachers on effective assessment of children’s performance.

It is believed that this will expand the reach of better qualified teachers who will deliver improved, active play-based learning to KG and nursery Children in response to the need aforementioned in Ghana. Each MPKG School will also be supported with classroom resource packs such as wooden blocks, KG-appropriate reading books, dolls and other resources that will depict a child friendly classroom environment. The teachers will also have phonics manuals, KG Template and Activity books. The involvement of the GES Officers ensures that the knowledge is locally owned and a cadre of professional early childhood practitioners whom the Regional GES can rely on for the scale up of this innovative project in other districts is available. The training will also introduce the teachers to an adapted KG assessment tool developed by UNICEF and accepted by GES now.

A study tour to the MPKG School will precede the training of the circuit-based teachers. GES will be expected to extend the training to all KGs in the district using the trained circuit teachers through a cluster based training. The teacher training methodology is highly intensive, and uses best practices, cutting edge approaches which devolves key aspects of the training to the live classroom environment, ensuring that teachers are able to implement what they learn.  

The model practice classrooms will also help to showcase quality nursery and KG education to the children and parents as the approach used by the teachers helps the children to acquire psychosocial and communication skills, reading and writing skills, and mathematical skills which gives parents the value for their investment. It also builds children who are confident, curious, collaborate and can communicate well with each other. 

Literature reviews and desktop research

It revealed to me the gaps in the delivery of Early Childhood Education in Ghana. The findings have been incorporated into the design of this project.

With access to experienced and knowledgeable mentors and researchers, our organisation will now be able to build a robust early childhood education design and demostrate our impact through the LEAP Project.

1. Does equipping teachers in child centered approaches lead to improved children learning outcomes?

2. Does the establishment of model practice classroom and increased engagement of parents in their children's education improve learning outcomes of children?

i. Training for teachers on child centered approaches done

ii. Model Practice Classroom established in circuits

iii. Solar Powered Tablets procured with GES recommended textbooks uploaded

iv. Learning Resources distributed

v. Dilapidated classrooms rehabilitated, and new ones constructed.

We develop a work plan, seek funding and implement them.

1. Improved learning outcomes of children

2. Increased access to nursery and kindergarten education in target rural communities.

3. Improve assessment practices among teachers.