Sabre Charitable Trust

First Day at School

Sabre is running the First Day at School campaign throughout the month of September to highlight inequalities in primary education between the UK and Ghana. Our aim is raise awareness and funds so we can tackle this situation and give every child in Ghana a chance to have their own first day at school.

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WHY the campaign :

After moving to the right postcode, attending weekly religious ceremonies and a lot of form filling, thousands of parents in the UK have done everything they can to ensure that this September, their child will have their first day at a school where they will receive the best possible start to their education. In stark contrast, over 600,000 children in Ghana will miss out on this important occasion entirely.

Lack of education and early school provision is a growing issue in Ghana affecting the life choices and future of hundreds of thousands of children. The children that are lucky enough to go to school will join class sizes of up to 60 children with just one teacher, 70% of their teachers will have never received any formal training, half of schools have no toilet facilities, 19% have no access to drinking water and over 5000 schools take place under a tree! These are not conducive learning environments.

We want every child in Ghana to have a first day at school in an environment that provides quality education and better life chances. This month, when parents in the UK are worrying if they have sent their children to the right school, there are thousands of parents in Ghana left wondering if their children will ever get to school.

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HOW to join the campaign :

Our commitment to raising awareness and funds to respond to the urgent need to get more children into quality primary education in Ghana, led us to building this campaign and website. We wanted to create a platform where people of all ages and backgrounds could read, view and share one common and very important experience... starting school. The interaction with this website in the UK will be vastly different from that of our Ghanaian counterparts, many of which did not go to primary school, which in itself emphasises our message.

So we are asking you to join us and share yours and your children’s photos and memories of the first day at school, tell us what your education means to you and we also want to hear from you if you never got to go to primary school and the effect of this on your life.

There are a number of ways you can join the campaign:

Whether your school days are long gone, or you are a parent with children going to school for the first time this year, everyone can get involved. Get clicking on the 'Share a Story' button now.

At the end of the month we will be collecting the stories and pictures to make a 'First Day at School 2012 Year Book' and we will be in touch with ways you can support Sabre's programmes in the future.

Thanks for taking part.