Pupils sew their support for Ghana school

Textiles pupils with some of the dozens of items made for the African children. - (l-r) Roberta Pellowe-Bailey, Ella Shuttleworth, Yasmin Quinlan, Lydia Entwistle, Millie Johnson-Leach, Estelle Adshead, Eleyna Flitcroft, Molly Thornton.

Pupils from Hulme Grammar School have dug deep to support children in poverty-stricken rural Ghana.

While textiles students have been making clothes and gifts for 200 pupils aged four to 18 at Kwahu-Tafo Junior High School in the west African country, youngsters from Hulme’s kindergarten and prep school have filled three suitcases with stationary supplies, sunglasses, toys and underwear.

And on Sunday a group of 23 students and three teachers will fly to Ghana to deliver the items and work for three weeks.

The charity Dress A Girl Around the World — which encopurages people to make clothing for children in developing countries — has also donated boxes of bright dresses and shorts.

Year nine girls studying textiles made extra shorts and matching gifts such as hair bands and toiletry cases. The group will also be taking items donated by local people and companies, including football kit.

Hulme deputy principal John Dalziel, who will lead the trip, said: “It will mean so much to the children out there. They have a school uniform but other than that they don’t have much.

“I can’t wait to see the smiles on their faces when they get them. They love colourful things and the dresses will be well used by the little girls; they will then get passed on to their sisters and used again.”

Hulme has had a link with the school in Ghana for several years and the group will be laying a new floor, painting the kindergarten and finishing off work they started to the library last year.

Staff will also be running teacher-training sessions.

Mr Dalziel, who also visited Ghana last year with pupils, added: “It is such a relatively short distance away but they are living in conditions our great-grandparents wouldn’t have experienced.

“The education system is one of the worst in the world so we are taking teaching material with us to do some training. ”

Mr Dalziel added: “We’re over the moon with the children’s collection, they’ve been so generous. “We’ve been given a free coach by Swans Travel and extra luggage allowance by KLM, so we will take as much as we can - but first in line will be the three suitcases filled by the youngsters.”