What do people imagine when someone says students? Poor, always drinking, partying, causing noise and chaos and clogging up the streets in student housing. It is not very often that students are seen to be doing good except for four students; Jillian Hales, Adam Webb, Harriet Morris and Leah Dobson. Where they have been given the opportunity t to go to Ghana and help the people living poverty. The second year students have been given the opportunity through their course (primary education) where they get to spend four weeks helping young children learn Basic English and Maths skills so that they can get into local primary schools. Children in Ghana often don’t go to school because they have to go out and raise money for their families, girls often get married early so less money is used to feed the children and many get shipped off as slaves. The aim of the Charity, Right to Dream, reaches out to these children and not only do they provide education they also have a football academy, which has given many of the children scholarships to the UK and USA, for the chance to play football and lead a better life.

When talking to student Leah Dobson she said ‘this is a great opportunity that the university has offered and the experience will be out of this world, it will make me realise the little things we take for granted and in the process I will be helping young children’s lives’. This is the first year that Christ Church’s Primary Education course has offered students four weeks off to take part in an alternative placement. The aim of the alternative placement is for students to have the experience of something totally different to a primary school, with many of the students taking the opportunity to go abroad. Adam Webb feels as though this experience is going to be life changing, ‘not only will we experience the lifestyle and culture of Ghana but we will be in an environment that is totally out of our comfort zone, making us aware of how other people live’.

The Right to Dream Charity, founded by Mamud Billa, started off by teaching young street children under a mango tree where there was no financial support or grants. The charity since has vastly expanded with a football and golf academy, a choir, extra-curricular activities and recently have opened a centre in Sierra Leone. The centre is aiming to include a health care programme where it gives free childhood immunisations to children. Mamud Billa says ‘the desire these children have to obtain an education is extremely humbling and inspirational. They are so eager to learn, to go to school and to make a future for themselves’. The students are so thrilled that they get the opportunity to teach abroad and Jillian Hales says ‘I have been saving hard for this experience, so that I can give something back to the children and help them change their lives, while learning new things’.

The students have had to save up for this experience with no support from the university, but Harriet Morris says ‘I don’t care that I’ve had to save up all this money because the experience is going to be truly wonderful’. If you would like to know more about the charity Right to Dream or donate money, visit the website on www.righttodream.com

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