Support Geoffrey's Daughters' Education

I am an occupational therapist from the US and have been working in Ghana for many years. I have known Geoffrey and have worked with him on and off for almost 20 years. As a child, one of his legs needed a below-knee amputation due to an accident. He has a business education and experience working in the accounting departments of a couple of organizations. When the bank he was working in was taken over by another corporation, the newly hired and temporary staff, including Geoffrey, were let go. He became an Uber driver to support the family. About a year ago, when his car needed a new engine he could not afford, he needed to stop driving. Until then, his salary had been covering school fees for his 2 children and other family expenses. The family has been struggling since then.

He and his wife Mary have two daughters: 1) Dannica, a 9-year-old who has asthma and is in 4th grade. Her proud father immediately and proudly states that she is “doing very well; she’s very brilliant; she’s very bright”. Her goal is to be a medical doctor when she grows up; and 2) Hadasha-Kriss, a 6-year-old in first grade, who is also doing well in school (“she’s also bright”). She already knows that she wants to be a nurse lecturer. Geoffrey’s wife, Mary, is a councillor-coordinator and teacher at their daughters’ school. Currently, her salary pays for the family’s living expenses.

Recently, the project in Accra, Ghana, with which I’m involved has begun a mushroom cultivation income-generating project to help us be more self-sufficient in our efforts to empower people with disabilities through education, vocational training, business support, mobility aids, etc. We have hired Geoffrey to be our marketing and distribution person. The project is just getting off the ground and we expect within a year we will be able increase his salary. In the meantime, however, he and Mary are struggling to cover the school fees for their daughters. The requested funds will go for school fees and other education-related expenses for the next year, until the mushroom project gets more solidly off the ground and his Geoffrey’s salary increases.