In Oshiyie, Ghana where the children walk a mile to collect water and poverty is commonplace, the charity of two southeast Queens women promises to bring opportunity to a community where prostitution and theft are sometimes the last means for survival.
Adjoa Gzifa, from St. Albans, and Barbara Bryant, from Hollis, are planning to build a 12-room school for 600 kindergarten through ninth grade students in Oshiyie. But to do so, they’ll first have to raise $230,000.
The story might sound vaguely familiar. After all, talk show titan Oprah Winfrey invested $40 million of her own fortune to build a boarding school for gifted but impoverished girls in South Africa that opened in January 2007.
But please, just don’t compare Gzifa and Bryant to Oprah.
“Oprah is like me. I have been doing it for five years. Oprah just has more money and doesn’t have to fund-raise the way I do,” Gzifa said.
When the two women discovered the poor fishing village about five years ago, “It was like a light bulb went off,” Gzifa said. They had been searching for a suitable project to adopt when they came upon a small schoolhouse that served 132 students.
“It was sort of like God tapping me on the shoulder saying, ‘This is the project I want you to have,’” said Gzifa.
The two returned home, founded an organization dedicated to the purpose called Future Scholars Inc., and set about locating donors who would be willing to sponsor a child for $50—the cost of annual tuition, a school uniform and one meal per day.
The first year Future Scholars Inc. raised $2,000, enough to cover the tuition for every student. During the second year donations increased to $5,000. This year donations amounting to $30,000 have paid for the foundation of the new building.
When the school is completed it will contain a classroom for each grade, a staff office, a library, a computer center and room for storage.
“Before we started the campaign many families could not afford to send their students to school,” said Gzifa. “The campaign has provided families that could not afford tuition with the opportunity to educate their children.”
And because Gzifa and Bryant believe that everyone in the village should have the opportunity to be educated, it is not uncommon to have young adults sitting in a first grade classroom.
“We do not turn anyone down who wants to get an education,” Gzifa said.
Since adopting the school, some 100 students have graduated on to high school. “Graduates come up to me and tell me how the school has changed their lives,” she said. One young woman said that were it not for her education she most likely would have become a prostitute to help raise money for her family.
“I’d be roaming about stealing and smoking and I’d probably be a father by now,” Gzifa recalled a young man telling her.
The women’s efforts mean a great deal to the community. “These children want to go to school,” Gzifa said. “The parents are very supportive. Whenever we go there the whole village turns out. The children sing and dance and the parents will greet us.”
Gzifa said she expects that Future Scholars Inc., which is currently seeking board members willing to meet quarterly, will gain non-profit status this summer. But the founders aren’t planning any black tie charity dinners to celebrate.
“We accept donations,” Gzifa explained. “I prefer not to spend the money on fundraising. This way 100 percent of the money goes to the school.”
And for a school so poor that one pencil is broken into three pieces so there are enough to go around, Gzifa said that donations of any and all types of school supplies are also welcome.
“We deliver them ourselves,” to make sure they arrive, she added.
To make a donation to Future Scholars Inc./Oshiyie Primary School or learn about becoming a board member please contact Adjoa Gzifa at 718-482-5347.
