Abraham Badu-Tawiah, a chemistry professor at Ohio State, created the X-Ed foundation to provide schools in Ghana with basic resources Credit: courtesy of Osei Thomas
Some children in Ghana go to schools without desks, chairs or textbooks.
Abraham Badu-Tawiah, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Ghana native, has made it his mission to change that.
Badu-Tawiah said he started the X-Ed Foundation, short for “Excelling Education,” in 2020 to raise money to give basic resources to schools in Ghana — especially in rural areas. Since its start two years ago, Badu-Tawiah said X-Ed raised over $4,000 to help three schools purchase notebooks, textbooks, other school supplies and desks.
“I grew up in Ghana, and I experienced this hardship myself, but what made me start it is that I saw a video that somebody had shared on social media and that really broke my heart,” Badu-Tawiah said. “There were some kids that needed some basic amenities for school.”
Badu-Tawiah said after seeing the video, he wanted to help schools lacking resources but knew he couldn’t do it alone. He said he wrote letters to people he knew to get their support — including Kwasi Adjekum, assistant professor of aviation at the University of North Dakota, who is also from Ghana.
To decide which schools to support, Badu-Tawiah said he sends people he knows in Ghana to visit and research which ones need the most assistance.
Adjekum said the learning conditions of these schools are “almost deplorable.”
“The condition [of the buildings] is so dilapidated that it’s almost dangerous,” Adjekum said. “It could break and fall on these kids.”
Badu-Tawiah said X-Ed visited a school where children were sitting on the floor and had no textbooks. Without textbooks, teachers were required to come up with their own notes, Badu-Tawiah said, and X-Ed noticed attendance was poor.
“They wouldn’t come in if there’s nothing for them to use in the school,” Badu-Tawiah said.
Adjekum said providing resources — such as desks and textbooks — to children during their primary years is vital to their education.
“Now they don’t have to be squatting on the floor or live on the floor to write,” Adjekum said. “They’ll be able to sit down in class, and that is very important for teaching and learning.”
Adjekum said because he grew up in Ghana in a similar situation, he feels a sense of responsibility to give back to his roots.
“If you have been privileged to make it to the top, you have a responsibility to stretch your hand and to lift others up to your level,” Adjekum said.
Badu-Tawiah said his main goal with X-Ed is to give children hope.
“They need to know that although the condition seems like nobody cares, people actually care, so they should have that motivation to work harder and have a higher goal for themselves,” Badu-Tawiah said. “That is one of my main motivations — to motivate the kids to take their studies seriously.”
