An SOS Hermann Gmeiner School Story

SOS Children's Villages runs two international schools, one of them in Tema, which is about 35 kilometres from the Ghanaian capital, Accra. The students at the International SOS Hermann Gmeiner College in Tema are a mix of youngsters from SOS Children's Villages in all the English-speaking countries of Africa and young Ghanaians, with no fewer than fifteen nations represented in the total intake of 200 students.

In addition to a four-year secondary school education, the college also offers a two-year baccalaureate course with an internationally recognized school-leaving certificate that gives the students access to practically all universities. With its IB curriculum (IB = International Baccalaureate), the college is a member of the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) and of various other international school associations.

The schools affiliated to the IBO all subscribe to the philosophy that education is not to be treated as an end in itself but above all as a process of social learning in and out of the classroom. The mission statement of the SOS Hermann Gmeiner College in Tema also focuses on international understanding and cultural plurality, peace education and a commitment to pan-Africanism and operates a substantial neighbourhood outreach programme.

Social learning at the college is effective at two levels. The first is the formal level, comprising discussion platforms, theme days, neighbourhood outreach projects and other organized events. Then there is an informal level which derives from the very structure of the school. After all, if such an international melting pot is to be successful, mutual understanding and co-operation have to be high on the agenda.

Most of the countries of Africa do not have enough schools, with the result that relatively few children actually receive an education. Those children who are able to go to school are always a privileged minority whatever their social background. For that reason it is felt at the SOS Hermann Gmeiner College in Tema that this privilege should be shared with the less privileged as far as possible.

Richard Laryea, peace education coordinator in Tema, speaks of the aid programmes (which are a compulsory part of the course) as a source of mutual enrichment; the local people benefit from the students' activities, and the students benefit from their contact with the local people. A typical example is a literacy campaign launched a few years ago in Kakasunaka, a village about ten kilometers from the college. In that case the college students teach the village children reading and arithmetic once a week and also distribute teaching materials.

As an extension of the original teaching project students, working working along side with villagers, built a learning and community centre. Additionally, the students played an active role in the Kakasunaka Water Project, which involved the construction of a pipeline to ensure that the villagers have a regular supply of clean water. The SOS Hermann Gmeiner College received the 1996 Robert Blackburn Award for that project. A similar programme is in place at Dedenya, another village with a rudimentary socio-economic infrastructure on the outer fringe of the public welfare services.

The neighbourhood outreach activities at the college also include regular visits by groups of students to a children's home run by the Sisters of Charity and to a school for children with special needs in Dzorwulu. They also help at a centre for convalescent leprosy sufferers and work at a youth and rehabilitation centre run by the Salesians of the Order of Don Bosco for children und youngsters from Tema and Ashiman who have been abandoned or have a drug addiction problem and in some cases have become involved in crime.

Groups of students go there once a week to help tidy up and clean the rooms, do the washing and play with the children, tutor them and give them the feeling that they are accepted. Above all the college students play an active role in a rehabilitation programme for street children, trying to build up stable relationships and working with the children to find alternatives for them for a future life off the streets. They teach reading, writing and arithmetic and help out at talks held on such subjects as drug addiction and alcohol abuse, AIDS and other social problems. Richard Laryea particularly stresses the emotional aspect of this kind of community work, which helps to bring in marginalized groups from the social periphery.

After more than seven years of successful work in a multicultural environment, the International SOS Hermann Gmeiner College in Tema has been invited to participate in a pilot project for an international education system. The schools on the project are committed to equipping their students with a set of "peace instruments" which can be used to "infect" other people.

In this context, peace is not seen simply as the antithesis to war. It means much more than that; it implies equal access to education and work, a sustainable approach to the use of natural and cultural resources, a functioning community and respect for the individual, a political culture that is supportive rather than detrimental for the people, and much else besides. Such an approach to promoting peace presupposes the ability to see what is different and special in others, to appreciate how enriching heterogeneous cultures and traditions are, and how important solidarity is in a global peace process.

At the college this process is "practiced" in a variety of ways. With fifteen nations represented in Tema, there are opportunities enough, like celebrating the various countries' main festivals together. Then the students put on their national dress, play traditional music and prepare typical dishes.

The idea of discovering a country through the people's eating habits and national dishes is something Richard Laryea calls "Food for Peace", because it is such an immediate experience. Tolerance and Human Rights Days provide a platform for addressing global problems in this field and the failure to respect the integrity of the individual in the form of either lectures on current conflicts and strategies for their solution, or poetic reflection or plays performed by the students themselves.

On Tolerance Day the usual school hierarchy is reversed; the students become teachers for a day and the teachers students, an exchange of roles that promotes mutual respect and a greater appreciation of each others' contributions.

With such a mixed student structure at the college, the microcosm of the student hostels is one big practice ground in the process of social learning. When a student from Zimbabwe shares a room with a student from Ghana or Sierra Leone, two different cultural worlds come into very direct contact, and that can naturally lead to conflict. With the help of a mediator, however, it is often possible to explain misunderstandings resulting in personal offence in terms of differences in socialization.

The words that are spoken can have sharper implications in one cultural context and a milder meaning in another; forms of behaviour that are felt to be considerate in one country may seem intrusive in another. When is music played where and by whom? When are the windows to be opened? - That is the kind of little detail that can blow up and have a big impact in an environment of coexistence in a confined space.

And yet the fact that students who avoided each other at the beginning of term invite each other to their respective homes in their various countries at the end of term shows that such seemingly small spaces can open up wide horizons, and that it has been possible to teach the students a more differentiated and respectful attitude. That is what Richard Laryea means when he speaks of "world citizenship".