As part of the West African Gas Pipeline Company’s (WAPCo) Employee Volunteerism project, employees of the company on Wednesday, December 13, 2023, joined hands to give the Dzorwulu Junior High School in the Ayawaso West Municipality of the Greater Accra Region a facelift by painting the facility.

The workers, led by top managers of the company, also engaged in a pep talk with the students urging them to take their studies seriously, and aspire to be great.

Although the public school is located in the plush community of Dzorwulu where WAPCo’s head office is located, the school’s infrastructure does not look great on the outside.

Just like many government schools, it is faced with a lot of challenges as students mostly enrol for free based on government policy, leaving school managers with a lot of struggles as the government’s provision is often limited.

Even though public junior high school education is largely free in Ghana, the Headmistress of the School, Mrs Irene Yankson Neequaye, said some students are poor to the extent that, they’re unable to even purchase books and other vital educational materials.

She thus described the intervention by the staff of WAPCo as timely and helpful.

According to her, WAPCo officials had visited the school earlier to ask about what they could do for them through the employee volunteerism event.

She said, that considering that the school does not look good on the outside despite its location in one of Accra’s plush areas, she deemed it necessary to request for the painting, as well as the provision of educational materials to the school and some needy students.

According to her, the school which was the first experimental JHS in Ghana, has produced a lot of good students and still performs well in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) despite its challenges.

“We suffer a lot in running the school, but as a head, we have to run the school anyway. So, once in a while companies around us like you come to assess our needs before they come in to offer us support. Our children are doing so well in the BECE, and in most of the A-list schools, our graduates are there.”

Mrs Irene Yankson Neequaye commended employees of WAPCo for the support but added that like Oliver Twist, they will need more support in other areas going forward.

She added, “We have other needs, some of our children excuse me to say are so poor that, even exercise books sometimes I have to buy for them. Sometimes teachers have to use their scanty salary to buy food and books for the kids. So, we thank you for providing some of the kids with educational materials, but like Oliver Twist, we’ll always ask for more.”

The Managing Director of WAPCo, Mitchelle Burkett, expressed the excitement of staff and management of the company for the opportunity given to them to achieve their desire to help and enrich the communities in which they operate through various Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects.

Deputy Manager, Workforce Planning and Recruitment at WAPCo, Kwame Baah-Forson, in a pep talk with some selected students during the brief ceremony, urged them not to give up on their dreams regardless of the challenges, but to be motivated to become like WAPCo employees or even better than them.

He lectured them on the differences between talent and skills, and how all three require perfecting if they’re to achieve their career goals and objectives in life once they’re able to identify their interests.

The Head of Corporate Communications at WAPCo, Nuna Senaya, also engaged the students specifically on what they hope to become in future and advised that they can be successful in other careers even if the specific ones they dream of today do not materialize in the future as long as they’re committed to developing the skills required to excel.

The Human Resource Manager at WAPCo, Patience Adu Mantey, also took turns to advise the students against negative habits that have the propensity to affect their academics and obstruct their formative years.

While acknowledging the importance of electronic gadgets in the process of learning and acquisition of knowledge, she advised them not to overly spend time on such gadgets and social media platforms, but rather focus more on their studies.

She also cautioned them against betting and internet fraud activities saying they have the power to destroy their lives. She urged them to cultivate the habit of reading widely to enhance their knowledge.

Selected needy students were presented with school bags containing educational materials such as books and pens among others.

The students and teachers were offered some snacks after the ceremony.

WAPCo’s General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Dr Isaac Doku, while using his personal experiences advised the needy students who were presented with the items not to see themselves as alone in their struggles, saying many people including him had their share of struggles but remained determined to succeed.

He fortified them never to stop chasing their dreams no matter the hurdles because they were achievable.

Two of the needy students who received the educational materials thanked WAPCo for the support and said it would go a long way to make their stay in school less burdensome.