Written by Dan Goss - My Journal.
“Medaase” to all the people who supported me in joining Sun Screen IT Foundation on their latest mission to deliver IT labs to 2 schools in Akropong, Ghana. The experience was unbelievable, and I am incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to make a real difference and meet many unforgettable people along the way.
The local language in the village of Akropong is "Twi". Thank you in Twi is Medaase.
To keep the memories fresh and to give my personal view and experiences throughout the journey I write this post. I hope to convey the gratitude and emotions I experienced while in Ghana.
Myself. Volunteer - Laurence Tucker, Operations Director extraordinaire. Charity Trustee and tech wizard - Steven Jones. Charity Founder - Nathaniel Comer, the change the world needs.
Now I was fortunate enough to see the enthusiasm and thankfulness of the people we would be visiting before we arrived which settled any anxiety I was feeling. This was due to a message received from the Headmistress of one of the schools we would be visiting.
“Good evening. We wanted to express our heartfelt gratitude for your unwavering love and support towards our students. The Akropong Community is truly proud of your contributions. We eagerly look forward to welcoming you soon! God richly bless you.”
Now if like me you thought transporting equipment via airplane would be a doddle, you couldn’t be more wrong :-D. We started early, packing 10 suitcases!! We needed to wrap equipment securely to ensure they arrived in one piece after each bag made its way through the airport to the plane and back to us in Ghana. This was no simple task, imagine trying to transport 3 suitcases weighing around 30kgs each along with hand luggage, laptops etc.
Thankfully after a smooth yet full flight with British Airways, we arrived on time in Accra and retrieved 10 still in one-piece suitcases… phew! Challenge 1 completed.
Upon arrival in Ghana I was unsure what to expect but the airport was smooth, well developed and we managed to get through passport control without issue. The first sign I noticed was a single huge word “Akwaaba” – Welcome.
After finding our transport, driver Albert and our dedicated helper Ben we set off on the hour-long journey to the village of Akropong. We made it to our hotel around 11:30pm. A long but well executed day.
First up, an early breakfast of Bread, Sausage, Egg and Salad with a topping of Beans (Like Heinz), different but pleasantly surprised.
Next, we set off on our 10–15-minute journey to check out the first of the 2 schools to make sure it was in the state we would expect and decide if we needed to make some adjustments or new plans.
On arrival at the Presbyterian Kindergarten & Primary School (PPS), my eyes were wide open with wonder and excitement. On exiting the van, I quickly realised my excitement was pale in comparison to the absolute beacons of smiling, happy faces of the students once they saw we were there.
The IT room, that had been prepared for our arrival was in great condition, we had working electrics and network cables. Desks, chairs and benches for the students. Amazing! In this picture aside from the dream team from left to right we can see the Headmistress, Joseph (Electrician), Daniel Okeyre (Teacher) and Ben (Our local helper).
After a quick check of the building everything looked good so we hopped back in the van and headed off to the second school we would be providing IT to. The PCE Demonstration Primary and Asamoah K.G School. The school is part of a campus, it has multiple schools within including the JHS school which Sun Screen IT Foundation delivered an IT lab to back in April 2025.
Again, another ready to go room, freshly painted, some left-over monitors in place from the previous deployment at JHS. Cabling all neatly hidden in some trunking. At this point, the 4 of us were very happy to see 2 well-prepared rooms. Quite the opposite to some previous deployments I learnt from some of the war stories we talked about during our time together.
Now back to the smiling, happy faces I mentioned… I have no words to adequately convey the pure joy these children expressed each and every single time they saw us. I really have never been so popular. The chants and call outs of “Obroni” (white man) will stay with me forever.
After a few minutes in the room the children could not contain themselves and were flooding into the room to ask what was happening, what we were doing so the head teacher, Christian Anane, called an assembly to introduce us to the 100s of eager children and explain why we were there and what we would be doing.
After some inspirational words from Nathaniel to the children, we stopped quickly at the JHS school to see how they are getting on with their delivery back in April and everyone was very happy to see a bustling busy classroom.
We headed back to the hotel to regroup and start preparing the IT kit into 2 lots to configure and transport to each school. Now you might think this was all glamour and comfortable, in reality we had 2 techies crouched on a bed configuring and testing 60 Thin clients, 2 Servers and 2 Switches. The other 2 were working through the cases organising and separating ready for transport when ready. All in a small, very hot, very humid hotel room.
Disaster – One of the switches appeared to have broken during transport and the monitors we sourced in Ghana had different display outputs to what the thin clients had. Ben our helper sprang into action speaking to contacts all around Accra to try to source the needed equipment and replacements.
Late evening, we experienced our first “doom so” or “off on” – a power cut that knocked out power everywhere without a generator for around 1hr. Nothing we could do now except sit on some plastic chairs and enjoy a cold refreshing bottle of Star beer.
8am start, today we split into 2 teams, Steven and I headed into one of the schools to get started while the others headed into Accra to find and purchase the bits we needed. A couple of hours they needed…. At 7.30pm, they arrived back at the hotel with everything we needed. This is commonly referred to as “African time”.
Meanwhile Steven and I had a successful day getting most of the devices on desks and had them connecting to the servers. It was starting to come together nicely.
Around midday, I had the absolute pleasure to meet Michaella and Christabel who came into the room and asked me “How do you type?”
Now I will admit, for someone in a computer tech role for many years, I found it quite challenging to reset my mind to realise these students had never had a keyboard in front of them, or a mouse and really didn’t know how to use them.
Christabel – Left, Michaella – Right.
These two 8 year old girls were beautiful, happy souls and spent a good half an hour talking with me, I learnt their favourite book is “The Red Hunter”, they love their teachers and coming to school. They have many friends, girls not the boys of course.
I showed them how to type while I was using my laptop and then with a computer keyboard. They knew all the letters and they took the keyboard and spent 20 minutes practising on the keyboard that at this point was not connected to a computer. Once they finished, they were asking me how to change the desktop background – an interesting question from someone who had never used a computer, but I spent some time showing them how on my laptop, they then both had a go and were extremely excited and happy to get to do it. They then hurried back to class.
At the end of school, they both re-appeared, Michaella had to stay at school to wait for her older sister and Christabel had to wait daily 2-3 hours for her driver to arrive and take her home. Can you imagine, 2-3hrs of waiting at school every day?
The girls brought me a book to take back and read… to be continued
Around 5pm the school was closed, all lessons finished but some of the older students came to pray. Now I am talking about 100s of students, ages ranging from 6 to 23, all what to me sounded like cheering/chanting/singing. You could feel and I really mean you could feel the passion and might during this time. I recorded the sound to replay, at this point I was not sure if it might be disrespectful to video so decided not to.
At the end of the day, Mr Anane gave us a lift home in his car, it drove but for much longer I am not sure. Every light that could be lit on the dashboard, was lit.
Upon returning to the Hotel, we were shown some footage of the trip to Accra, I have some images from what was seen by Laurence and Nathaniel in the multiple IT shops, quite unbelievable.
An earlier start today, meet for breakfast at 7am, not feeling particularly refreshed after a 20-minute dribbling shower but nevertheless we were up and raring to go again.
Today was about major progress so we split into 3 teams, Nathaniel headed down to the JHS schools to do some interviews with the students who had been using the computers since April.
Steven and I went back to PCE Demo to finish up some bits and pieces now we had the other monitors, cables and replacement parts. Laurence headed to the PPS school to get started setting up the computers, monitors and cabling at that school.
With DJ Nathaniel upfront in the van we of course had some tunes to get us fired up for the day…
After some further work in the school, we are almost there, the students brought in some chairs and the teachers brought in some banners, it’s starting to look finished.
Next, we jetted back to the other school with our driver Albert, we were there in no time to find Laurence had pulled a blinder and had all the Thin clients and monitors on desks! Great effort and a huge relief.
After some time spent configuring the server, switches and access points in the computer room we were making good time.
The teacher who had been working with Sun Screen IT trying to get an IT lab at his school was Daniel Okeyre. His colleague Joseph another teacher is also shown in this picture, both will be teaching IT and managing the environment going forward. Two exceptional teachers.
Some of the students at this school were desperate to be introduced to the Obroni, Daniel told one of them to just come over and talk to me.
Here I met 14yr old Felicia, a strong character in herself, super bright and inquisitive, we spoke briefly about her family, she has a 1yr old baby sister, an older sister in another village called Essos and a 4yr old brother called Godwin who was at the same school. Felicia told me she likes science and wants to do medicine and become a doctor. She excused herself and re-appeared after a couple of minutes with her brother Godwin who was a little shy, but I managed to get him talking and he told me Felicia is a good sister. Unfortunately, I did not manage to get a photo with them as they had to shoot back to class. Another couple of children I won’t forget speaking with, so much life and enthusiasm, it’s heartwarming to see.
Tonight, we escaped to a local bar owned by Mr Darko, we got to see and hear about the local drinks, expertly explained by Ben. No samples of the local stuff, none of us dared to try them.
Afterwards Ben was kind enough to invite us to his house to meet his family. We also met his landlord who used to be a mariner who spent time in Russia. When questioned on where he prefers to be Russia or Ghana, he laughed and said it’s not really a question. He conversed in English and was happy to answer our “stupid questions” as he had plenty of “stupid answers”. A very interesting funny chap.
We headed back to the hotel to regroup, refuel with some “Hot Shito” and get ready for the next day. Shito, is a chilli sauce that works with the majority of African dishes, it came with every meal and provided hours of entertainment throughout the week with every pun imaginable.
The joy of the evening shower when the water pressure was up – relief after 3 days of dribbling water pressure.
Another split operation today, Nathaniel and Laurence headed back out to Accra to pickup a few more bits we needed to finish up physically. An exciting day of rejecting “Papaya” for lunch until finally realising it was Chicken from a shop call Papaya! Who would have guessed?!
A visit to Agbogbloshie before heading home provided some video and photographic evidence of why Sun Screen IT Foundation exists and why the world should take note and start making a change to stop E-Waste. Checkout some of what was seen:
We must do something to stop this practice of “dumping” in areas of poverty and economic need.
Steven and I headed back to PCE Demo school for some final configuration changes and enhancements. A morning not without some adventure, we thought we got lucky with a Mercedes that came to pick us up, a local guy Mr Darko borrowed it while we ate breakfast for 10 minutes and returned 30 minutes later with this taxi as the Merc had broken down. Now remember we are transporting equipment, in a case for protection…
We managed the 10-minute drive with the boot open, squashed in this tiny taxi without any further hiccups 😀
Today we had the pleasure of being visited by a force of nature, Hilda, 22, a student teacher in her 4th year with 1 year left to go before she qualifies and gets her own teaching role. Hilda stood out from the crowd due to her enthusiasm, happiness and general demeanour, we talked for a couple of hours about all things Ghana and the United Kingdom. Hilda was floating around the room, gently singing to herself while swaying side to side whenever not being engaged in conversation, this was a common theme with Ghanian people in general and it was amazing to see.
This is Hilda, aka TikTok phenom and aspiring Journalist. She has 9,500 TikTok followers @miss_fenteng
Hilda told me she uses TikTok to release educational content and practise her journalism by interviewing others. She has also been interviewed and appeared on TV in Ghana. I have no doubt she has an incredibly bright future whatever she decides to do. The brief TikToks she had me watched looked very professional, nothing like the TikTok videos I have seen floating around the internet back at home.
Hilda, as an educator took great pleasure in helping correctly spell some of Twi words, I had been making notes of to try and learn some of the local language. For reference, those notes are as follows:
Bra, is a respectful term, Yaw is the word for Thursday, Bra Yaw is how I would be called instead of Daniel, people are often called using the day they were born. Example, Laurence was known as Kofi Laurence during his time in Ghana.
We regrouped at the hotel around 6pm to prepare for a dinner with lots of the people we were working with in the area. Nathaniel, arranged for around 20 people to have dinner at a local restaurant with the help of Joseph, our main local contact. In another example of “African Time”, this was scheduled for a 7pm start, approximately 9pm we arrived while others were still arriving…
What an evening, music, beautiful people, new friends, started and finished with a prayer from the local pastor We got to meet some of the peoples families, wives and children. A special evening that ended in some African dancing which we all “tried” to take part in, some more successfully than others (A+ to Laurence!). A core memory locked in.
My favourite day, an incredibly long, emotional roller coaster where all the work came to a head, and we were rewarded with a truly magical day.
First up, we headed down to the PPS school to see Daniel and Joseph deliver their first lesson to the children. On arrival at the school, we received a warm welcome by some of the students clapping as we walked towards the classroom for the final time.
The dream team excited and ready to see the students enter for their first lesson.
Here we go, Daniel & Joseph delivering the first lesson on Microsoft PowerPoint, how to open it, select a template, type your name and add an animation – MAGIC!
Something I wanted to do was donate some pens and pencils to the school along with some sweets from the UK for the students to try. At the end of the lesson, Daniel handed each student a Moam ball shaped sweet as a well done to them. A huge success, once the flavours hit the faces lit up and it was beautiful to watch after a wonderful lesson given by the two teachers.
As a final step, a message was left on the whiteboard which was also signed by the 4 of us.
DREAM BIG WORK HARD
After some goodbyes, one of who was Felicia who I mentioned earlier, we headed to the PCE Demo school.
Teacher “Sir Confidence” gave a lesson in this fully kitted out room, the floor changed overnight, curtains and posters to finish it off. The lesson consisted of how to use the mouse and keyboard, how to create and rename a folder and change the desktop background.
After the lesson finished up, we were in for something extraordinary, a ceremony of sorts that I cannot express in words but hope the following pictures and videos can at least show what we experienced.
We are asked to sit front and centre, on some black leather chairs, in 38c heat, without really knowing what to expect. Slowly we were joined by head teachers, village chiefs, a pastor and so on. The ceremony lasted around 2hrs, an incredible amount of thanks and appreciation was given to us, along with being given some traditional clothing each. This was without a doubt my trip highlight and I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to take part and witness it. I am not afraid to admit, I was filled with emotion throughout and had to wipe my eyes a few times (It must of been the dust).
And now for the dancing…
Money being given to the dancers was a sign of respect that they had done a great job. We thought they all did a great job, and we were later told that its tradition the money is shared amongst the dancers.
Upon questioning Albert (our driver) later, he explained that the dancing all had meaning, the colours of the clothing, the patterns on the clothing, the arm movements, everything meant something. Some examples he explained:
Colours often relate to the tribes, the black outfit symbolises a hunter. It then made sense as one of the movements looked like a throat being cut, we were told that this is protection for us against all enemies behind us.
Other movements included an expression of unity, coming together. The pointing up referenced god above all. As the ceremony concluded, the IT lab was officially opened.
Now we had to nip back to the PPS school as we forgot something and saw the only “bit” of rain throughout our visit. The sky went dark, real fast.
Luckily, we had made it inside the school as the rain arrived in force!
As quick as it came, it stopped after around 15 minutes, we headed back to the hotel to get the rest of our stuff before leaving for our return flight. We said our final goodbyes and headed home.
As I have mentioned them throughout, I would like to introduce Ben (front and center), 29, our helper, aspiring Chef. Ben was our 5th team member while out in Ghana and made things easier when we would have been struggling otherwise. He stayed with us for the week but he kindly invited us to his house to introduce his wife Esther, son Wind, and their 2 dogs, “Next time” and “Roly”.
Also pictured from left to right. Nathaniel, Laurence, Steven and me – The Dream Team.
And finally, Albert, our driver, the man who got us where we needed to be and never left our side. Albert drives for a living but is also a mechanic, has a wife and 2 boys who took great pleasure seeing the Obroni via video call. Albert was a fount of knowledge; he managed to answer my many questions throughout our time together and give insight into the Ghanian way of life which was greatly appreciated.
Upon arrival home, I was greeted with this picture hung in the window. After 7 days away from my family, seeing two smiling faces eagerly waiting for me as I opened the front door was an amazing feeling.
The Ghanian way of life is so full of love, energy and respect it was a real joy to see. Many of them don't have much in comparison to people in the UK but you really wouldn't know it by their attitudes, everyone was super friendly, wanted to help and showed a huge amount of enthusiasm. I have no concerns that the two IT labs won't be used, the teachers and students could not wait to get in and start using them. Before i finished writing this I received a view from Daniel at the PPS school showing another lesson in progress with him explaining everyone is loving the IT lab and the students gave a big shout out to Sun Screen IT - AMAZING.
A couple of quotes heard throughout the week will stay with me:
"I have never seen so many people, working so hard, so slowly"
"DREAM BIG WORK HARD"
"I might be able to make a difference, so therefore I must"
"You can be the change"
And finally, for the techies among us that might be interested I made a note of what was deployed at each school.
Hardware:
Software:
