Solar panels funded by BBF Global Relief provide electricity in a school in Ghana at all hours of the day. | Photo courtesy of Hope for Ghana

Students in the rural village of Klokpe, Ghana have been busy hitting the books after receiving a new school from Hope for Ghana in March 2024.  The 11-classroom school serves more than 200 students in kindergarten through ninth grade and includes a library, computer lab, staff room, and bathrooms—a major upgrade from the shed where students previously studied.   

BBF supported the project by funding a borehole and reverse osmosis machine that provide students with clean drinking water and the school’s 10kW solar array, which powers 100 percent of the school’s electricity needs, including computers, fans, lights, and the borehole system.  

Due to its proximity to the equator, Ghana receives more direct sunlight than countries closer to the earth’s poles, making solar power an ideal method for generating electricity that could otherwise be unreliable or too expensive to maintain.   

“If the school had to depend on the National Grid’s electrical system, the cost of running the school would be prohibitive. Solar power offers the school all of these amenities at no cost to the community,” says Hope for Ghana’s founder, Dr. Steve Greene. “This is sustainability at its best.”  

With access to electricity at all hours of the day, students and parents often visit the school in the evening to do homework or read in the library.