Children in the deprived rural community of Bayorbojan, located about 100 km from Tumu in the Sissala East Municipality, are not in school because the community does not have any.
Aged between five and 10 years and numbering over 50, none of them has ever set foot in a school, nor seen one.
A Ghana Health Service report puts the population of the community at around 120 people.
The children, their parents, guardians, opinion leaders and the Kuoro Dauda Bawa, the chief of the community, through the Ghana News Agency (GNA), in the Upper West Region, have appealed to the Government, to step in with social interventions to redeem the community from its plight.
“We’re appealing to the Government to build a school here so that we too can go to school,” ten-year-old Mulara told the GNA, in the local Sissali language.
She added: “I go to the farm every day and come to sleep as there is no school available for me to attend. My biggest fear is that I could be eloped and married off if I persist to go to the markets at Fumbisi or Komo in any of the nearby communities.”
Madam Salamutu Dauda, a parent and housewife, also said, in the Sissali language; “Ever since I got married here 15 years ago, the children have never known anything like school.
“We don’t have a clinic; we don’t have anything. Even this borehole, it’s the church that brought it to us.
“When it is time for voting, we have to go to Gwonsi to vote. Most people don’t even take part in the voting; we feel we don’t matter.
Kuoro Bawa, for his part, said apart from the school, the community lacked access to roads, a clinic and electricity.
Their main source of drinking water is a well, which dries up during the dry season.
“Our children don’t go to school and when they fall sick there are no clinics for us to take care of them. A vehicle can’t come to our community unless a motorcycle and even that we have to cut some trees to pave way for motorists”, the Chief said.
“Here is our hometown and we want the government to think about us despite our numbers and the location, it’s our place of origin”, he stressed.
He said: “Bayorborjan has limited access to productive means, hence impoverished people. It’s purely a rural area with a swath of land that has few homes and buildings, and not very many people but with huge forest cover and soil that will not require the application of fertilizer”, the Chief stated.
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